Hamletta
by Jenna Cassie Herdz
Summary: Her father dead, her uncle takes the title of Pirate King aboard the ship the Denmark. But when she finds out how her father really died, revenge fills her heart and mind.
1. The Apparition Appears

**A/N:** welcome! this is for pure fun. done with the dialogue as is in the play. if you've read any of my other stories, you'll recognized the discriptions of some of the characters. i chose the appearences of my characters to fit them, and one choice a actor that was done in one of the movie renditions of Hamlet. i'll list them, but you can ignore that bit if you like. It's not all of them, just some. i do not own Hamlet or any of its characters.

Hamletta: Krystal Robyn  
Claudius: Raphael Ortiz  
The Ghost: Richard Smith  
Ophelio: David Tennant (the featured actor)  
Laertes: Mack Watson  
Horatio: John Stewart  
Rosencrantz: Jasmine Steele  
Guildenstern: Zachary Mendrove

* * *

_**Chapter 1: The Apparition Appears**_

Francisco stood at the bow of the _Elsinore_, tethered at the port, sword on his hip as he looked out to the midnight water they sailed on. He was so concentrated on his watch, he didn't hear the steps behind him.

"Who's there?"

Francisco whirled around, drawing his sword and aiming it at the silhouette behind him, holding a lantern at eye level

"Nay, answer me!" he ordered, still holding up his sword. "Stand and unfold yourself!"

"Long live the king!" the silhouette replied, quickly and Francisco lowered his sword slightly, recognizing the voice.

"Bernardo?"

"He," Bernardo replied, the lantern light finally reaching his aged face and Francisco sighed in relief, sheathing his sword as the other man approached.

"You come most carefully upon your hour," Francisco noticed.

"'Tis now struck twelve," Bernardo confirmed. "Get thee to bed, Francisco."

"For this relief, much thanks," Francisco nodded. "'Tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart."

He stepped around Bernardo to head toward the hatch leading to the crew's quarters, but his friend stopped him.

"Have you had a quiet guard?" Bernardo asked, and Francisco turned to nod.

"Not a mouse stirring," he replied.

Bernardo nodded slowly in thought before smiling, "Well, good night. If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, the rivals of my watch, bid them make haste."

"I think I hear them," Francisco replied, hearing footsteps on the wood deck and drawing his sword to be safe as he turned to the sound. "Stand ho! Who's there?"

"Friends to this ground," one voice called in the dark, one Francisco recognized as Horatio, a slim, young man with black, curly hair and bright blue eyes.

"And liegemen to the Dane," another called, one he recognized as Marcellus, an older man of sturdy build and balding head.

"Give you good night," Francisco replied, sheathing his sword again.

"O, farewell, honest sailor," Marcellus nodded, holding his own lantern a little higher, but before Francisco could finally leave, he asked, "Who hath relieved you?"

"Bernardo has my place," Francisco replied, nodding to Bernardo as he stood closer to the bow. "Give you good night."

The three watched him disappear into the hatch before Horatio and Marcellus turned to Bernardo.

"Holla, Bernardo!" Marcellus called, stepping closer to him.

"Say," Bernardo replied then squinted in the dark as he lifted his lantern a little higher to see. "What, is Horatio there?"

"A piece of him," Horatio answered.

"Welcome, Horatio," Bernardo greeted. "Welcome, good Marcellus."

Marcellus stepped closer to Bernardo to whisper, "What, his this thing appeared again tonight?"

"I have seen nothing," Bernardo replied as Horatio stepped into their circle as well.

"Horatio says 'tis but our _fantasy_," Marcellus nearly growled in irritation. "And will _not_ let belief take hold of him touching this dreaded sight _twice_ seen of us. Therefore I heave entreated him along with us to watch the minutes of this night, that if again this apparition come, he may approve our eyes and _speak_ to it."

"Tush, tush," Horatio scoffed, hugging himself against the cold. "'Twill _not_ appear."

"Sit down awhile," Bernardo ordered, rolling a barrel over the deck to set it behind Horatio. "And let us once _again_ assail your ears, that are so fortified _against_ our story what we have _two_ nights seen."

"Well, sit we down," Horatio sighed, sitting on the barrel. "And let us hear Bernardo speak of this."

"Last night of all," Bernardo began. "When yond same star that's westward from the pole had made his course to illume that part of heaven where now it burns, Marcellus _and_ myself, the bell then beating one-"

"Peace, break thee off!" Marcellus interrupted in terror, turning behind him. "Look! Where it comes again!"

Horatio stood, the barrel tumbling to the deck at his sudden movement as the three stared in terror at the thing before them.

"In the same figure, like the king that's dead!" Bernardo gasped, backing against the railing behind him.

"Thou art the first mate!" Marcellus snapped, not taking his eyes off the ghost. "Speak to it, Horatio!"

"Looks it not like the king?" Bernardo trembled. "Mark it, Horatio!"

"Most like," Horatio breathed as the ghost stepped toward them, slowly. "It harrows me with fear and wonder."

"It would be spoke to," Bernardo advised.

"Question it, Horatio!" Marcellus ordered.

"What art thou that usurp'st this time of night," Horatio shuddered, the ghost stepping toward him. "Together with that fair and warlike form in which the majesty of buried _Denmark_ did sometimes march? By heaven, I _charge_ thee! _Speak_!"

The ghost stopped an inch away from Horatio's face, making the man's heart nearly stop at the pale face and dark look in the sea green eyes of it. They all saw it wearing a sword on it's hip, an antique helmet upon its head, the face shield up. It stood for a moment before turning and stalking away again.

"It is offended," Marcellus breathed, stepping up next to Horatio as he let out a long sigh.

"See, it stalks away!" Bernardo called, watching the ghost as it stopped at the main mast and seemed to fly up toward the crow's nest.

"Stay!" Horatio called, now desperately. "Speak! Speak! I charge thee! Speak!"

"'Tis gone, and will not answer," Marcellus breathed, the ghost seeming to disappear into the dark above.

"How _now_, Horatio!" Bernardo questioned, shoving the other man on the arm. "You tremble and look pale! Is not this something more then fantasy? What think you on't?"

"Before me God," Horatio breathed, not looking away from the crow's nest. "I might not this believe with the sensible and true avouch of mine own eyes.

"Is it not the king?" Marcellus questioned him further.

"As thou art thyself," Horatio admitted, finally looking away from the nest and leaning back on the railing. "Such was the very armor he had on when he the ambitions _Norway_ combated. So frowned he once, when, in an angry parle, he smote the sledded Polacks on the ice. 'Tis strange."

"Thus twice before," Marcellus recalled. "And jump at this dead hour, with martial stalk hath he gone by our watch."

"In what particular thought to work I know not," Horatio admitted. "But in the gross and scope of my opinion, this bodes some strange eruption to our state."

"Good now, sit down," Marcellus gently ordered, quickly grabbing the barrel that had been knocked over and sitting Horatio upon it as he continued, "and tell me, he that knows, why this same strict and most observant watch so nightly toils the subject of the land? And why such daily cast of brazen cannon and foreign mart for implements of war? Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task does not divide the Sunday from the week? What might be toward, that this sweaty haste both make the night joint-laborer with the day? Who is't that can inform me?"

"That can I," Horatio assured him with a sigh. "At least, the whisper goes so."

He waved the two sailors closer and they both leaned over him.

"Our last king, whose image even but _now_ appeared to us, was, as you know, by Fortinbras of the _Norway_, thereto pricked on by a most emulate pride, dared to the combat. In which our valiant Hamlet – for so this side of our known world esteemed him – did slay this Fortinbras, who by sealed compact, well ratified by law and heraldry, did _forfeit_, with his life, all those his treasures which he stood seized of, to the conqueror. Against the which, a moiety competent was gaged by our king, which had returned to the inheritance of Fortinbras, had he been vanquisher. As, by the same covenant, his fell to Hamlet.

"Now, sir, young Fortinbras, of unimproved mettle hot and full, hath in the skirts of the _Norway_ here and there sharked up a list of lawless resolutes, for food and diet, to some enterprise that hath a stomach in't. Which is no other – as it doth well appear unto our state – but to recover of us, by strong hand and terms compulsatory, those foresaid treasures so by his father lost. And _this_, I take it, is the main motive of our preparations, the source of this our watch and the chief head of this post-haste and romage in the seas."

"I think it be no other," Bernardo replied. "But e'en so, well may it sort that this portentous figure comes _armed_ through our watch, so like the king that was, and _is_, the question of these wars."

"A mote it is to trouble the mind's eyes," Horatio explained. "In the most high and palmy state of Rome, a little ere the mightiest Julius fell, the graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets. As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, disasters in the sun, and the moist star upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse. And even the like precurse of fierce events, as harbingers preceding still the fates and prologue to the omen coming on, have heaven and earth together demonstrated unto our climatures and contrymen."

Horatio cut himself off, turning pale face and wide eyes ahead again at the sight suddenly before him as he stood and breathed, "But, soft. Behold! Lo, where it comes again!"

The two other men whirled to stare at the ghost as it came closer.

"I'll cross it though it blast me!" Horatio announced, fumbling around his pockets to pull out a rosary and held it up. "Stay, illusion! If thou hast any sound, or use of voice, speak to me! If there be any good thing to be done, that may to thee do ease and grace to me! Speak to me!"

The ghost's jaw dropped, as though it would speak when a gull called above them, a glimmer of sunlight shimmering off the sea and the ghost stopped, turning again to head toward one of the rails. Horatio followed it, still calling, "If thou art privy to they country's fate, which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O speak! Or it thou hast uphoarded in they life extorted treasure in the womb of earth, for which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death, speak of it! Stay and speak! Stop it, Marcellus!"

The morning fog began rolling in and covered the entire deck to hide it as it stalked away as the three ran after it.

"Shall I strike it with my partisan?" Marcellus called, drawing his sword.

"Do it, if it will not stand!" Horatio allowed.

"'Tis here!" Bernardo called from the starboard railing as Horatio started toward the port.

"'Tis _here_!" he called in argument.

"'Tis _gone_!" Marcellus corrected from the center of the fog that disappeared almost instantly and they met at the bow again and he sheathed his sword. "We do it wrong, being so majestical, to offer it the show of violence. For it is, as the air, invulnerable, and our vain blows malicious mockery."

"It was about to speak when the gull called," Bernardo noticed as they all leaned on the railing.

"And then it started like a guilty thing upon a fearful summons," Horatio observed. "I have heard, the gull, that is the trumpet to the morn on the seas, both with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat awake the god of day. And, at his warning, whether in sea and fire, in earth or air, the extravagant and erring spirit hies to his confine. And of the truth herein this present object probation."

"It faded on the calling of the gull," Marcellus recalled. "Some say that ever against that season comes wherein our Savior's birth is celebrated, the bird of dawning singeth all night long, and then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad. The nights are wholesome. Then no planets strike, no fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, so hallowed and so gracious if the time."

"So have I heard and do in part believe it," Horatio agreed before looking to the bow again to see the sun rising, putting his rosary away. "But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill. Break we our watch up, and by my advice, let us impart what we have seen tonight unto young Hamletta. For, upon my life, this spirit, dumb to us, will speak to _her_. Do you consent we shall acquaint her with it, as needful in our loves, fitting our duty?"

"Let's do it, I pray," Marcellus nodded. "And I this morning know where we shall find her most conveniently."

* * *

**A/N:** reviews?


	2. Discord and Disbelief

**A/N:** new chappie! enjoy!

* * *

_**Chapter 2: Discord and Disbelief**_

Hamletta leaned on the port railing of the _Denmark_, twirling the rum left in her mug as she stared deftly into it, watching it swirl around the dull inside of the cup. She turned her turquoise blue eyes up to the helm just as a breeze blew back her long black hair and sneered at the sight of an older man at the helm, dressed all in black from hat to boot, a mug of rum of his own in his hand. He removed his hat to reveal silver hair and brown eyes as he grinned, wrinkling the fleshy scar on his right cheek. She didn't want to see the woman all in red and black stepping next to him, her green eyes glittering, the breeze blowing at her dark hair as well.

The man was the newly appointed Pirate King, Claudius…her uncle. The woman was the Pirate Queen, Gertrude, his wife…and her mother. At made her sick seeing them together.

"Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death, the memory be green," Claudius began, addressing the crew drinking about the ship, and they all stopped as he continued, "and that it us befitted to bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom to be contracted in one brow of woe, yet so far hath discretion fought with nature that we with wisest sorrow think on him, together with remembrance of ourselves."

Hamletta was tapped on the shoulder and turned around in wonder at one of the crew members who gestured that she pay attention. She rolled her eyes and leaned back on the railing, crossing one ankle over the other, still twirling her half glass of rum.

"Therefore," Claudius continued, slipping his arm around Gertrude's waist to pull her close and gaze into her eyes, "Our sometimes sister, now our queen, the imperial jointress to this warlike state, have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy…" He turned back to the crew. "With an auspicious and a dropping eye, with mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, in equal scale weighing delight and dole…taken to wife. Nor have we herein barr'd your better wisdoms, which have freely gone with this affair along. For all, our thanks."

The crew cheered, except Hamletta, who looked away at her glass when Claudius pressed a kiss to Gertrude's lips. As the crowd died down, all taking drinks from their mugs, Claudius turned to them to continue.

"Now follows," he called. "That you know, young Fortinbras, holding a weak supposal of our worth, or thinking by our…late dear brother's death our state to be disjoint and out of frame, colleagued with the dream of his advantage, he hath not failed to pester us with message, importing the surrender of those treasures, lost by his father, with all bonds of law, to our most valiant brother." He chuckled, evilly. "So much for him.

"Now for ourself and for this time of meeting. Thus much the business is." He took a piece of parchment from his vest pocket. "We have here writ to the _Norway_, to the uncle of young Fortinbras – who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears of this his nephew's purpose – to suppress his further gait herein. In that the levies, the lists and full proportions, are all made out of his subject."

He turned to step down the steps from the helm to the deck, holding the piece of parchment up high and stepping next to two of his men.

"And we here dispatch you, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand, for bearers of this greeting to the _Norway_," he announced, handing the parchment to the younger of them, Cornelius. "Giving to you no further personal power to business with the king, more then the scope of these delated articles allow. Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty."

The two men nodded, Cornelius tucking the piece of parchment away as they both replied, "In that and all things, we show our duty."

"We doubt it nothing," Claudius grinned, waving them on with a flourish of his feathered hat as they headed toward the railing to climb down the ladder to the quay. "Heartily farewell!"

He turned back to his crew, one man in particular who'd tapped Hamletta earlier to pay attention. He was older than herself by a few years, tall and slim with sand blonde hair and chocolate brown eyes.

"And now, Laertes," Claudius began, strolling toward him, his hands behind his back until he reached him. "What's the news with you? You told us of some suit. What is it, Laertes?"

The man with sand blonde hair looked at a loss for words for a moment as Hamletta watched her mother step down the stairs on the other side of the helm to head toward her uncle.

"You cannot speak of reason to the King and loose your voice," Claudius smirked at Laertes. "What wouldst thou beg, Laertes, that shall not be my offer, not thy asking? The head is not more native to the heart, the hand more instrument to the mouth, than is the helm of the _Denmark_ to thy father. What wouldst thou have, Laertes?"

"My dread lord," Laertes nodded, respectfully before looking into his cup of rum, nervously. "Your leave and favour to return to France, from whence though willingly I came onto the _Denmark_, to show my duty in your coronation. Yet now, I must confess, that duty done, my thoughts and wishes bend again toward France and bow them to your gracious leave and pardon."

"Have you your father's leave?" Claudius wondered, turning to the older man next to him, fat in gut and loosing in hair. "What says Polonius?"

"He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave by laboursome petition," Polonius, the old man, a man Hamletta knew as Claudius' first mate, nodded with a grin. "And at last, upon his will I sealed my hard consent. I do beseech you, give him leave to go."

Claudius looked to Laertes with a raised brow and scoffed at the young man's fear of him as he still kept his gaze in his cup.

"Take thy fair hour, Laertes," Claudius finally replied, turning and waving his hand as to dismiss the young man as he shot his gaze to the Pirate King with wide eyes. "Time be thine, and thy best graces spend it at thy will."

He stepped toward Hamletta as she took the last, long draught from her cup and sucked her teeth on her lips, not looking at her uncle. Even as he stepped directly in front of her, Laertes stepping aside as Gertrude sidled up and tucked her arm around Claudius' arm.

"But now," he sighed, looking to Hamletta as she ignored him, gazing into her empty cup. "My cousin, Hamletta, and my daughter-"

"A little more than kin, and less than kind," Hamletta shot out, lifting a glare to him, but it didn't affect him at all.

"How is it that the clouds _still_ hang on you?" Claudius wondered, exasperated.

"Not so, my lord," Hamletta scoffed with a smirk, shoving off the railing to casually stroll through the crowd of crew members. "I am _too_ much in the sun."

"Good Hamletta," Gertrude called, detaching from Claudius to step toward her daughter as she passed behind Laertes. Hamletta sighed and stepped back to stand in front of the Pirate Queen as she continued, "Cast thy knighted color off, and let thine eye look like a friend on the _Denmark_. Do not forever with thy vailed lids seek for thy noble father in the dust. Thou know'st 'tis common…all things must die, passing through nature to eternity."

"Ay, madam," Hamletta nodded. "It _is_ common."

"If it be, why seems it so particular with thee?" Gertrude wondered.

"_Seems_, madam?" Hamletta snapped, stepping to the railing and gripping it tightly, facing the sea. "Nay it is, I know not 'seems.' 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, nor customary suits of solemn black, nor windy suspiration of forced breath, no, nor the fruitful river in the eye, nor the dejected 'havior of the visage, together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief that can denote me truly. These indeed _seem_, for they are actions that a woman might _play_, but I have that _within_ which passeth show." She turned a glare at her mother and uncle. "These but the trappings and the suits of woe."

"'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamletta, to give these mourning duties to your father," Claudius began, setting a hand on Gertrude's arm to gently pull her back as he stepped closer to his neice. "But, you must know, your father lost a father, _that_ father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound in filial obligation for some term to do obsequious sorrow. But to persevere in obstinate condolement is a course of impious stubbornness…"

He stood directly next to Hamletta, but she didn't look up from the still water below the railing she stood over. He leaned next to her ear and growled, "'Tis _unmanly_ grief."

Hamletta's hands gripped the railing so tightly, her knuckles turned white as Claudius stood away from her and strolled toward the deck again.

"It shows a will most incorrect to heaven, a heart unfortified, a mind impatient, an understanding simple and unschooled."

He turned to face her, Gertrude next to him, wringing her hands as Hamletta stayed, unmoving, her back to them both.

"For what we know must be and is as common as any the most vulgar thing to sense, why should we in our peevish opposition take it to heart? Fie!"

He marched toward her again and grabbed her arm to pull her to face him, shoving her away as he spoke again.

"'Tis a fault to heaven, a fault against the dead, a fault to nature, to reason most absurd, whose common theme is death of fathers, and who still hath cried, from the first course till he that died today, 'This must be so.'"

Claudius sighed, setting his hands on her shoulders firmly, but not too tightly. She glanced at both his hands before turning a glare to him, but he continued, his tone softening.

"We _pray_ you, throw to earth this unprevailing woe, and think of us as of a father. For let the world take note, you are the most immediate to our throne, and with no less nobility of love that that which dearest father bestows upon his daughter do I impart to you."

He patted her shoulders with a satisfied smile and released her to step next to Gertrude again who brought her hands up in happiness to her heart at hearing the declaration. Hamletta only remained in her spot as Claudius wrapped an arm around her mother's shoulders to lean her on him before he continued.

"For your intent in going back to the _Wittenberg_, it is most retrograde to our desire. And we beseech you, bend you to remain _here_, in the cheer and comfort of our eye, our chiefest courtier, cousin and our _daughter_."

"Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamletta," Gertrude smiled, leaving the embrace of Claudius and taking her daughter's hands. "I pray thee, stay with _us_. Go not to the _Wittenberg_."

Hamletta sneered, subtly as her mother's green eyes bored into her turquoise blues, and she felt she had no other choice but to reply, "I shall, in all my best, obey you, madam."

Gertrude grinned and pulled her daughter into a fierce hug as Claudius approached with open arms just as Gertrude let her go.

"Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply!" Claudius grinned, gathering Hamletta in his arms for a hug as well, which she tried struggling from, but to no avail. He finally let her go and pressed his palms gently to her cheeks, saying, "Be as ourself on the _Denmark_." He turned to Gertrude and held a hand to her, leading her toward the railing. "Madam, come. This gentle and unforced accord of Hamletta sits smiling to my heart. In grace whereof, no jocund health that the crew of the _Denmark_ drinks today, but the great cannon to the clouds shall tell, and the king's rouse the heavens all bruit again, respeaking of earthly thunder!" He looked to Gertrude and entreated, "Come away."

Hamletta watched as the entire crew left, Laertes stepping next to her, a look of wonder on his face as she snatched an almost full bottle of rum from one of the crew and took a long swig. He frowned at her in question but she shook her head and waved him on with a free hand. Reluctantly he nodded and turned to head off the boat and into port with the rest of the crew. She waiting, rolling her wrist, the bottle of rum with it as she leaned back on the railing until everyone was gone.

Only when she knew she was alone did she shove off the railing, taking another long draught of rum and stepping to the middle of the deck. She stared down at the wood, wiping her mouth with her sleeve and pausing as she did, bursts of quiet sobs suddenly releasing themselves from her throat as she dropped to the deck on her knees. Hugging herself, she rocked back and forth, sobbing.

"O," she shuddered, "that this too, _too_ solid flesh would melt! Thaw and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon against self-slaughter! O God! God!"

She sucked in a shaky breath, setting the bottle down and resting on her hands and knees on the wood still sobbing.

"How weary, _stale_, _flat_ and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on't! Ah, _fie_!"

She slammed a fist onto the deck before rolling herself onto her back to shove the heels of her hands into her eyes.

"'Tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed, things rank and gross in nature possess it merely. That it should come to _this_! But _two months_ dead!"

She froze and shot her hands down to sit up, shaking her head.

"Nay!" she breathed. "Not so much! Not two! So excellent a king, that was to _this_, Hyperion to a _satyr_, so loving to my mother that he might not beteem the winds of heaven visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!"

She curled her legs under her again, hitting her head with her hands, roughly as she doubled over.

"Must I remember?" she growled. "Why she would hand on him, as if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on, and yet, within a _month_-"

She shot to her feet, grabbing the bottle of rum with her and marching toward the railing, muttering, "Let me not think on't…"

Hamletta leaned forward on the railing, facing the sea as she took another long swig of rum before pounding her free fist on the railing, growling, "Frailty, thy name is woman! – A little _month_, or ere those shoes were old with which she'd followed my poor father's body, like Niobe, all tears – why she, even she-"

She choked into a few more sobs before letting fly her cried of dismay.

"O, God!" she sobbed, lowering her temple onto her forearm as it curled up on the railing. "A beast, that wants discourse of reason, would have mourned longer – married my _uncle_, my _father's brother_, but no more like my father than _I_ to _Hercules_. Within a _month_! Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears had left the flushing in her galled eyes she _married_!"

She lifted her head up to the sky, tears glittering in the sunlight and breathlessly announced to heaven, "O, most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets!" She lowered her gaze ahead, staring blankly out to sea as she thumbed the nozzle of her rum bottle. "It is not, nor it _can_not come to good."

She sighed, hopelessly before setting her chin flat on the wood of the railing.

"But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue."

She stood in silence where she was for some time before she heard the clattering of the wood and rope ladder and quickly stood straight, drying her eyes and downing another swig of rum.

"Hail to your ladyship!"

Hamletta frowned, wondering if she'd heard right the voice that called her. She quickly ran to the opposite end of the ship and leaned over the railing to look down the ladder, a grin instantly spreading over her face.

"I am glad to see you well, Horatio!" she called watching he and two others behind him climbing up the ladder. "Or I do forget myself!"

"The same, my lady, and your poor servant!" Horatio called back, all smiles as well as the three men climbed onto the deck.

Hamletta threw herself at the man in a tight hug, grinning, "Sir, good friend! I'll change _that_ name with you!" They stepped at arms length, glancing from her first mate to the others she knew as her crew members as she asked, "And what make you from the _Wittenberg_, Horatio? Marcellus?"

"My good lord-"

"I am _very_ glad to see you," Hamletta grinned, her eyes fixed on Horatio as she still gripped his arms. She hadn't been aware that she'd cut into Marcellus' explanation to their presence there. "Good even, sir. But what, in faith, make you from the _Wittenberg_?"

"A truant disposition, good my lady," Horatio replied.

"I would not hear your enemy say so," Hamletta chuckled, still trying to wipe away the tears she'd shed earlier. "Now shall you do mine ear that violence, to make it truster of your own report against yourself. I know you are no truant." She wagged his finger at him before slapping his arm, jokingly. "But what is your affair aboard? We'll teach you to drink _deep_ ere you depart."

Horatio chuckled slightly before replying, "My lady, I came to see your father's funeral."

Hamletta nodded hugely before patting his arm, saying, "I pray thee, do not _mock_ me, fellow sailor. I think it was to see my _mother's_ wedding."

"Indeed, my lady, it followed hard upon," Horatio couldn't help but notice.

"Thrift," she replied, turning to the railing where she'd been before, the bottle of rum still in her hand. "Thrift, Horatio!"

She sighed, leaning on the railing and drumming her fingers on the wood with her free hand.

"The funeral baked meats did _coldly_ furnish forth the marriage tables. Would ever I had met my dearest foe in heaven or ever I had seen the day, Horatio!"

She scoffed, shaking her head and looking into the water below as Horatio slowly approached her, Marcellus and Bernardo standing still in the idle of the deck.

"My father," she breathed, looking distantly into the water. "Methinks I _see_ my father."

Horatio frowned in wonder before looking into the water himself then back and her and hesitantly asking, "Where, my lady?"

Hamletta frowned this time and looked to him, replying, "In my mind's eye, Horatio."

He nodded in understanding before placing a hand over hers as it sat on the railing, saying, "I saw him once. He was a goodly king."

"He was a _man_," Hamletta objected, looking back out to sea. "Take him for all in all." She lowered her gaze and murmured, sorrowfully, "I shall not look upon his like again."

Horatio swallowed as his grip tightened on her hand in compassion when she sniffled, a small tear flowing down her cheek which she quickly wiped away before he whispered, "My lady, I think I saw him yesternight."

"Saw who?" she frowned to him.

"My lady, the king your father," Horatio replied, looking her straight in the eye and without hesitation.

Hamletta's frown instantly disappeared as she finally dropped the bottle of rum to the deck, not caring if it spilled and gripped Horatio's arms in desperation, eyes round as saucers and searching his.

"The king my father?" she breathed.

"Season your admiration for awhile with an attent ear, till I may deliver, upon the witness of these gentlemen, this marvel to you," he advised, his hands going to her arms as well as he hushed her with a finger to her lips before gesturing to Marcellus and Bernardo.

"For God's love, let me hear!" she pleaded, still gripping his arms, balling his sleeves in her fists as they kept each other's gazes, and Horatio began.

"Two nights together had these gentlemen, Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch, in the dead vast and middle of the night, been thus encountered," he explained. "A figure, _like your father_, armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe, appears before them and with some march goes slow and stately by them. _Thrice_ he walked by their oppressed and fear-surprised eyes, within his truncheon's length, whilst they, distilled almost to jelly with the act of fear, stand dumb and speak not to him. This, to me, in dreadful secrecy impart they did, and I, with them, the third night kept watch, where, as they had delivered, both in time, form of the thing, each word made true and good…the apparition comes."

Awe filled both their faces as Horatio lifted a hand between them, breathing, "I _knew_ your father. These hands are not more like."

Hamletta let him go and looked away in thought for a moment, running her hand over her mouth and chin before looking to the two men with Horatio and questioning, "But _where_ was this?"

"My lady, upon the deck of the _Elsinore_ where we watched," Marcellus replied.

"Did you not speak to it?" she wondered.

"My lady, _I_ did," Horatio replied, drawing her attention back to him as he continued, "but answer made it none. Yet once methought it lifted up its head and did address itself to motion, like as it would speak, but even then a morning gull called loud and at the sound it shrunk in haste away, and vanished from our sight."

"'Tis _very_ strange," Hamletta murmured, her hand up n her face again.

"As I do live, my honored lady, 'tis true," Horatio insisted. "And we did think it writ down in our duty to let you know of it."

"Indeed, indeed, sirs," Hameltta hummed, deftly nodding before turning to the two guards. "But this troubles me. Hold you the watch tonight?"

"We do, my lady," Bernardo nodded.

"Armed, say you?" she recalled, glancing between them.

"Armed, my lady," Marcellus nodded this time.

"From top to toe?" Hamletta wondered.

"My lady, from head to foot," Bernardo confirmed and she sighed in disappointment before stepping toward the railing and leaning on it, facing the sea.

"Then saw you not his face?" she sighed.

"O, yes, my lady," Horatio smirked, making Hamletta whirl around to face him with wide eyes, filled with disbelief. "He wore his beaver up."

Hamletta stepped toward him again, gripping his shirt sleeves as she questioned, "What, looked he frowningly?"

"A countenance…more in _sorrow_ than in anger," Horatio replied.

"Pale or red?" she continued.

"Nay, very pale," Horatio replied with a shake of his head.

"And fixed his eyes upon you?"

"Most constantly."

"I would had I been there," she breathed.

"It would have much amazed you."

"Very like," she nodded, deftly. "Very like. Stayed it long?"

"While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred," Horatio replied.

"Longer," Bernardo objected. "Longer!"

"Not when _I_ saw't!" Horatio snapped back before Hamletta pulled his attention back to her.

"His beard was grizzled…no?" she asked.

"It was, as I have seen it in his life," Horatio murmured. "A sable silvered."

Hamletta swallowed, letting him go and turning to grip the railing in panic, staring at the sea below for some time before she turned to speak to them.

"I will watch tonight," she determined then looking to Horatio. "Perchance 'twill walk again."

"I warrant it will," he confirmed and she waved the three men toward her to form a huddling circle.

"If it assume my noble father's person, I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape and bid me hold my peace," she whispered, glancing between all of them. "I pray you all, if you have hitherto concealed this sight, let it be tenable in your silence still, and whatsoever else shall hap tonight give it an understanding, but _no tongue_. I will requite your loves." She patted them each on the arm and waved them toward the railing to head back to the _Elsinore_, her uncle's second ship. "So, fare you well. Upon the deck of the _Elsinore_ 'twixt eleven and twelve, I'll visit you."

"Our duty to your honor," the three called before heading over the railing and down the ladder.

"Your loves, as mine to you," she called, one last time, heading to the other side of the railing. "Farewell!"

She stared out at the sea, gripping the railing tightly again, her mind reeling.

"Myfather'sspiritinarms," she murmured to herself. "All is not well. I doubt some foul play." She growled in impatience and gripped the railing harder. "Would the night were come!" She took a deep breath to calm herself and say, "Till then, sit still, my soul. Foul deeds will rise, though all the earth o'erwhelm them to men's eyes."

* * *

**A/N:** reviews?


	3. Warnings

_**Chapter 3: Warnings**_

Laertes sighed as he stood at the railing of the _Denmark_ looking out to his ship getting ready to depart. He looked to his right when he heard footsteps come up next to him and he smiled at a younger man than he, slim in build with brown hair and wide, brown eyes.

"My necessaries are embarked," he smirked, turning to the young man and gently gripping his shoulders. "Farewell. And, brother, as the winds give benefit and convoy is assistant, do not sleep, but let me _hear_ from you."

"Do you doubt that?" Ophelio smirked, patting his older brother's arm as they both turned to lean on the railing and Laertes cleared his throat, drawing Ophelio's attention.

"For Hamletta," he began, making Ophelia roll his eyes at what he suspected was next, "and the trifling of her favor, hold it a fashion and a toy in blood…a violet in the youth of primy nature. Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting, the perfume and suppliance of a _minute_. No more."

"No more, but so?" Opehlio smirked, turning to lean back on the railing with his elbows as Laertes turned to stand closer to his brother.

"Think it _no more_," Laertes warned. "For nature, crescent, does not grow alone in thews and bulk, but, as this temple waxes, the inward service of the mind and soul grows wide withal. _Perhaps_ she loves you now, and now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch the virtue of her will. But you must fear, her greatness weighed, her will is not her own, for she herself is subject to her birth. She may not, as unvalued persons do, carve for herself, for on her choice depends the safety and health of this whole state, and therefore must her choice be circumscribed unto the voice and yielding of that body whereof she is the head."

Ophelio sighed, rolling his eyes again and turning, trying to walk away, not wanting to hear what his brother had to say, but Laertes hurried ahead of him to stop him.

"Then if she says she loves you, it fits your wisdom so far to believe it as she in her particular act and place may give her saying deed, which is no further than the main voice of the _Denmark_ goes withal," he continued, gripping his arms in urgency. "Then weigh what loss your honor may sustain, if with too credent ear you list her songs, or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open to her unmastered importunity."

Opehlio let out a sputtered laugh and Laertes rolled his eyes at his brother's immaturity.

"Fear it, Ophelio," he warned. "Fear it, my dear brother, and keep you in the rear of your affection, out of the shot and danger of desire. The chariest maid is prodigal enough is she unmask her beauty to the moon. Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes. The canker galls the infants of the spring, too oft before their buttons be disclosed, and in the morn and liquid dew of youth contagious blastments are most imminent."

The younger man stared out to sea, leaning on the railing again as Laertes leaned next to him, advising, "Be wary then. Best safety lies in fear. Youth to itself rebels, though none else near."

"I shall the effect of this good lesson keep as watchman to my heart," Ophelio assured Laertes then smirked, "But, good my brother, do not, as some ungracious pastors do, show _me_ the steep and thorny way to heaven, whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine, _himself_ the primrose path of dalliance treads and recks not his own rede."

Laeretes frowned at him in confusion before Ophelio nodded down to the dock, turning the older man's attention to it. Two wenches giggled and waved to them both and Laertes recognized the two women and waved back with a charming smirk. Ophelio cleared his throat expectantly at his brother who pulled back and turned to him.

"O, fear me not," he warned, then noticed their father approaching and sighed, "I stay too long. But here my father comes."

Polonius stepped up to his sons and Laertes grinned, "A double blessing is a double grace! Occasion smiles upon a second leave."

"Yet here, Laertes!" Polonius replied, slapping the man on the back, making Ophelio snicker at his brother jerking and coughing at the force of it. "Aboard, aboard, for shame! The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail, and you are stayed for. There, my blessing be with thee!"

Laertes nodded and tried to walk away, but Polonius continued, "And these few precepts in thy memory see thou character…"

Laertes sighed inwardly giving Ophelio a bored stare to which the younger man shrugged and both men looked to their father.

"Give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any unproportioned thought his act," Polonius began. "Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel, but do not dull thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatched unfledged comrade. Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but being in, bear't that the opposed may beware of thee."

Laertes smirked confidently as he straightened out his coat.

"Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice," Polonius continued. "Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habits as thy purse can buy, but not expressed in fancy, rich not _gaudy_, for the apparel oft proclaims the man, and they in France of the best rank and station are of a most select and generous chief in that. Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for loan-"

"Oft loses both itself and friend," both men finished.

"And borrowing-"

"Dulls the edge of husbandry," they cut in again. Polonius glared at the two as they only smirked between themselves then their father before he stepped closer to Laertes.

"This, above all," he advised. "To thine ownself be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." He patted his son's chest and grinned, "Farewell! My blessing season this in thee!"

"Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord," Laertes nodded, turning to Ophelio.

"The time invites you," Polonius added, noticing the crew bustling on his son's ship. "Go. Your servants tend."

"Farewell, Ophelio," Laertes smiled, hugging his brother tightly before holding him at arms length. "And remember well what I have said to you."

"'Tis in my memory locked," Ophelio nodded. "And you yourself shall keep the key of it."

Laetres sighed, seeing the look in his brother's eyes before pressing his hand to his face, patting his cheek, saying, "Farewell."

Polonius and Ophelio watched Laertes climb over the railing and down the ladder, the young man leaning on the railing and Polonius standing tall next to him.

"What is't, Ophelio, be hath said to you?" Polonius wondered once Laertes was on the port and heading to his ship.

"So please you, something touching the Lady Hamletta," Ophelio sighed in exasperation as he turned to lean back on the railing.

"Marry, well bethought," Polonius mused. "'Tis told me she hath very oft of late given private time to you, and you yourself have of your audience been most free and bounteous. If it be so, as so 'tis put to me, and that in way of caution, I must tell you, you do not understand yourself so clearly as it behoves my son and your honor. What is between you? Give me the truth."

"She hath, my lord, of late made many tenders of her affection to me," Ophelio smirked, flicking a piece of sand from the rail.

"Affection!" Polonius scoffed, drawing Ophelio's wide-eyed gaze to him in wonder. "Pooh! You speak like a green boy, unsifted un such perilous circumstance. Do you _believe_ her tenders, as you call them?"

Ophelio stood tall, smirking again and setting his hands on his sword belt to fiddle with it as his father turned to him as well and he replied, sarcastically, "I do not know, my lord, _what_ I should think."

"Marry, I'll teach you," Polonius snapped. "Think yourself a baby, that you have ta'en these tenders for true pay, which are _not_ sterling. Tender yourself more dearly, or – not to crack the wind of the poor phrase running it thus – you'll tender _me_ a fool."

"My lord," Ophelio objected, rocking back and forth on his feet. "She hath importuned me with love in honorable fashion."

"Ay," Polonius scoffed. "Fashion you may call it. Go to, go to."

"_And_," Ophelio continued, "hath given countenance to her speech, my lord, with almost all the holy vows of heaven."

"Ay, springes to catch woodcocks!" Polonius retorted. "I do know, when the blood burns, how prodigal the soul lends the tongue vows. These blazes, son, giving more light than heat, extinct in both, even in their promise, as it is a-making, you must not take for fire."

Ophelio frowned in wonder at his father's objections and looked to the sea as Polonius stepped closer, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"From this time be somewhat scanter of your presence," he advised. "Set your entreatments at a higher rate than a command to parley. For Lady Hamletta, believe so much in her, that that she is young and with a larger tether may he walk than may be given _you_. In few, Ophelio, do not believe his vows, for they are brokers, not of that dye which their investments show, but mere implorators of unholy suits, breathing like sanctified and pious bawds, the better to beguile. This is for all. I would not in plain terms, from this time forth, have you so slander any moment leisure, as to give words or talk with the Lady Hamletta. Look to't, I charge you."

He nodded deftly as Polonius patted his son's shoulder and waved him on, entreating, "Come your ways."

Ophelio sighed, still looking out to sea, thinking of Hamletta and feeling sick to his stomach as he sneered the words, "I shall obey, my lord."


	4. The Foul Deed Revealed

_**Chapter 4: The Foul Deed Revealed**_

Hamletta shivered as she, Horatio and Marcellus stood on the empty deck of the _Elsinore_ and breathed, "The air bites shrewdly." Horatio looked to her as she started walking in a circle at the bow of the ship as she hissed, "It is _very_ cold."

"It is a nipping and an eager air," Horatio nodded in agreement.

"What hour now?" Hamletta wondered, looking around the deck.

"I think it lacks twelve," Horatio replied, looking to the moon.

"No," Hamletta corrected, looking to the moon as well. "It is struck."

"Indeed?" Horatio frowned. "I heard it not. Then it draws near the season wherein the spirit held his wont to walk."

The canons of the _Denmark_ suddenly went off and the three ran to the railing to hear pipes and see more canons go off, aiming at nothing.

"What does this mean, my lady?" Horatio frowned as Hamletta sighed and leaned her arms on the railing.

"The king doth wake tonight and takes his rouse," she explained, watching the fanfare. "Keeps wassail and the swaggering upspring reels. And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, the kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out the triumph of his pledge."

"Is it a custom?" Horatio snickered as Hamletta lifted her hands and waved them as if conducting an orchestra for a moment before dropping them.

"Ay, marry, is't," she sighed. "But to my mind, though I am native here and to the many born, it is a custom more honored in the breach than the observance.

She sighed again and set her chin on the railing, continuing, "This heavy-headed revel east and west makes us traduced and taxed of other nations. The clepe us drunkards, with swinish phrase soil our addition, and indeed it takes from our achievements, though performed at height, the pith and marrow of our attribute."

Hamletta turned around to lean her elbows back on the railing, "So, oft it chances in particular men, that for some vicious mole of nature in them, as, in their birth – wherein they are not guilty, since nature cannot choose his origin – by the o'ergrowth of some complexion, oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason, or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens the form of plausive manners, that these man, carrying, I say, the stamp of _one_ defect, being nature's livery, or fortune's star – their virtues else – be they as pure as grace, as infinite as man may undergo – shall in the general censure take corruption from the particular fault. The dram of eale doth all the noble substance of a doubt to his own scandal."

An exceptionally cold breeze blew over her and she frowned in wonder at it before looking to Horatio, who turned around and his eyes went wide as saucers.

"Look, my lady!" he breathed, gripping her arm and she shot her gaze ahead at the sudden fog around the deck. "It comes!"

Hamletta's eyes grew wide as she slowly stood, Horatio's hand still clamped onto hers. She took his wrist in her hand and removed his hand as the silhouette in the fog approached. Her breath caught in her throat when the moonlight revealed his appearance. Eyes of sea-green and bits of salt and pepper locks peeking out from under the helmet on his head. She knew the face well. It was her father's and no other's.

"Angels and ministers of grace, defend us," she breathed as he stopped in front of her, catching his ghostly gaze with her wide-eyed one as she leaned back against the rail for support to keep from fainting. "Be thou a spirit of health of goblin damned? Bring with this airs from heaven of blasts from hell? Be thy intents wicked or charitable? Thou comest in such a questionable shape that I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet…King…"

She fell to her knees and held her arms up to the ghost, pleading with it. Horatio moved to lift her, but Marcellus pulled him back.

"Father," she breathed, shuffling closer to wrap her arms around its legs which could be seen _and _felt. "Royal Pirate, O, answer me! Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death, have burst their cerements. Why the sepulchre, wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd, hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws, to cast thee up again. What may this mean, that thou, dead corse, again in complete steel, revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon, making night hideous, and we fools of nature, so horridly to shake our disposition with thought beyond the reaches of our souls?"

She lifted her head to look into the ghostly eyes and asked, "Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?"

The ghost ran a loving hand over her cheek before gently lowering her arms from round him and taking a step back to lift a hand to her and gesture to a hatch leading below deck before stepping toward it itself.

"It beckons you to go away with it," Horatio spoke up, breathless as well. "As if it some impartment did desire to you alone."

"Look, with what courteous action it waves you to a more removed ground," Marcellus noticed before looking to Hamletta and pleading, "But do not go with it."

"No, by no means," Horatio agreed, looking to her and gently taking Hamletta's arm as she stared at the ghost of her father walking away to the hatch.

"It will not speak," she theorized. "Then I will follow it."

"Do not, my lady!" Horatio pleaded, still gripping her arm as she tried going after it and she whirled on him.

"Why?" she ground out. "What should be the fear? I do not set my life in a pin's fee. And not for my soul, what can it do to that, being a thing immortal as itself?" She turned back the apparition, determining, "It waves me forth again, I'll follow it."

Horatio gripped her other arm and pulled her away to look her in the eye, questioning, "What if it you toward the flood, my lady? Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff that beetles o'er his base into the sea, and there assume some other horrible form, which might deprive your sovereignty of reason and draw you into madness?"

Hamletta looked over her shoulder just as the ghost stopped at the edge of the hatch to face them, but Horatio shook her roughly, drawing her gaze back to him.

"Think of it!" he pleaded. "The very place puts toys of desperation, without more motive, into every brain that looks so many fathoms to the sea and hears it roar beneath!"

She looked over her shoulder again and the ghost entreated her to follow again with a wave of its hand.

"It waves me still," she noticed, shoving Horatio's hands away and trying to run after it. "Go on! I'll follow thee!"

"You shall not go, my lady!" Marcellus argued, helping Horatio to go after her, a man on each arm to pull her back and she struggled.

"Hold off your hands!" she snarled as she launched herself from them and against the railing, standing between them.

"Be ruled," Horatio scolded. "You _shall not go_!"

"My fate cries out, and makes each petty artery in the body as hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve!" she snapped back, looking to the ghost to see it heading down the steps of the hatch, stopping to wave her toward him again. "Still am I called!"

The two men with her gripped her arms as she tried running between them toward the hatch the ghost disappeared into, shouting, "Unhand me, gentlemen!"

She shoved them off and quickly drew her sword to aim it at the two of them, panting in rage through her teeth and growled, "By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that let's me. I say, away!"

She swiped her sword at them, but did not harm them as she stepped toward the hatch again, her eyes on the men before she finally turned to run to it, calling, "Go on! I follow thee!"

Horatio and Marcellus remained in their spots, watching Hamletta run down the hatch steps and afraid to even breathe before Horatio finally spoke.

"He waxes desperate with imagination," he breathed.

"Let's follow," Marcellus suggested, tugging on the younger man's arm. "'Tis not fit thus to obey him."

"Have after," Horatio agreed, both hesitantly heading toward the hatch. "To what issue will this come?"

"Something is rotten on the ship, the _Denmark_," Marcellus replied.

"Heaven will direct it," Horatio nodded, both stopping at the edge of the hatch to stare into it.

"Nay," Marcellus breathed, quickly heading down the hatch. "Let's follow him!"

* * *

_The Brig of the __Elsinore__..._

Hamletta followed the Ghost into one of the cells of the brig, leaning and panting against the door frame.

"Where wilt thou lead me?" she panted, standing to head into the cell as it stopped at the wall and she sheathed her sword. "Speak, I'll go no further."

The Ghost spun around and stepped toward her, an inch from her face as she stared up in terror at the sudden fury in the eyes and he growled, "Mark me."

"I will," she breathed and swallowed as he still loomed over her.

"My hour is almost come," he explained, "when I to sulphurous and tormented flames must render up myself."

"Alas," she sighed, lifting her hands to his chest. "Poor ghost."

"Pity me not!" he growled, throwing her hands off of him and backing away and she shoved herself back against the bars of the cell, still staring in wide-eyed fear at him. "But lend thy serious hearing to what I shall unfold."

"Speak!" she pleaded, running toward him again and gripping the collar of his armor. "I am _bound_ to hear!"

"So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear," he predicted.

"What?" Hamletta frowned in wonder.

"I _am_ thy father's spirit," the ghost proclaimed, and Hamletta bowing her head against his chest in sobs as he continued, "Doomed for a certain term to walk the night, and for the day confined to fast in fires, till the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burnt and purged away." He lifted his arms and hesitantly hugged Hamletta to him. "But that I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison-house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would horrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, thy knotted and combined locks to part and each particular hair to stand on end, like quills upon the fretful porpentine. But this eternal blazon must not be to ears of flesh and blood."

He gripped Hamletta's arms and shoved her to attention, tears streaming down her eyes still as she looked at him and he begged, "List! List! O, list! If thou didst ever thy dear father love-"

"O, God!" she breathed.

"Revenge his _foul_ and most unnatural _murder_!" the ghost growled and Hamletta's eyes went wider still before her countenance contorted to anger as she lifted her hands to his sleeves, balling the material in her fists.

"_Murder_!" she ground out.

"Murder most foul," the ghost confirmed. "As in the best it is! But this most foul, strange and unnatural."

"Haste me to know it, that I, with wings as swift as meditation of the thoughts of love, may sweep to my revenge!" Hamletta hissed.

"I find thee apt," the ghost replied, setting his hands upon her shoulders. "And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed that roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf, wouldst thou not stir in this."

He moved her to sit her down on the bench in the cell and stood tall next to her as she clamped her hands on one of his, her look now of awe rather than fear.

"Now, Hamletta, hear," he commanded, staring down at her. "'Tis given out that, sleeping in my cabin, a serpent stung me. So the whole ear of the _Denmark_ is by a forged process of my death rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth, the serpent that did sting thy father's life now _wears his crown_!"

"O, my prophetic soul!" Hamletta growled in rage. "My _uncle_!"

"Ay," the ghost confirmed with a huge nod of his head in a breathy voice. "That incestuous, the adulterate beast, with witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts – O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power to seduce! – won to his shameful lust the will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.

"O Hamletta," the ghost groaned painfully, kneeling down at her feet and setting his head on her lap as he hugged her waist and she leaned over him in compassion. "What a falling-off was there! From me, whose love was of that dignity that it went hand in hand even with the vow I made to her in marriage, and to decline upon a _wretch_ whose natural gifts were poor to those of mine!"

He lifted his head to look into his daughter's eyes, saying, "But virtue, as it never will be moved, though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven, so lust, though to a radiant angel linked, will sate itself in a celestial bed and prey on garbage. But soft!"

The ghost froze and turned to the cell bars, slowly standing as Hamletta frowned but remained wide-eyed in wonder. He gripped the bars and sniffed, murmuring, "Me thinks I scent the morning air…"

He turned back to Hamletta but remained standing at the bars, continuing, "Brief, let me be.

"Sleeping within my cabin, my custom always of the afternoon, upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, with juice of cursed hebenon in a vial, and in the porches of my ears did pour the leperous distilment, whose effect holds such an enmity with blood of man that, swift as quicksilver, it courses through the natural gates and alleys of the body, and with a sudden vigor doth posset and curd, like eager droppings into milk, the thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine, and a most instant tetter barked about, most lazar-like, with vile loathsome crust, all my smooth body."

Hamletta shook her head, sobbing into her hands as the ghost continued.

"Thus was I," he breathed. "Sleeping, by a brother's hand of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatched. Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd, no reckoning made, but sent to my account with all my imperfections on my head."

He leaned against the bars again, now covering his own face and sighing, "O, horrible! O, horrible! Most horrible!"

Hamletta jerked out a sob, drawing the ghost's attention to her and he hurried to his last position, kneeling in front of her and gripping her hands, making her gasp and meeting his gaze.

"If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not," he growled. "Let not the royal bed of the _Denmark_ be a couch of luxury and damned incest!"

He lifted a hand from one of hers to stroke her cheek, lovingly again, murmuring, "But, howsoever thou pursuest this act, taint not thy mind, not let thy soul contrive against they mother aught."

Hamletta opened her mouth to respond but he cut her off before she began.

"Leave her to heaven," he advised, "and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, to prick and sting her."

He looked to a small hole in the boards of the ship, breathing, "Fare thee well at once. The glowworm shows the matin to be near, and 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire."

The Ghost stood and pulled her with him as he looked to her again. He lifted his hands to stroke her face once more and pull her face closer to press a kiss to her forehead. She shuddered at the coldness of the touch, closing her eyes.

"Adieu, adieu," he whispered. "Hamletta…" He stepped closer. Toward her. _Through_ her with a whisper of, "Remember me."

He was gone. She whirled around, trying to find him in the cell, but he was completely gone. She jerked out a sob and placed a hand over her mouth to stop the others, but it did no good.

"O all you host of heaven!" she gasped, throwing herself against the bars. "O earth! What else? And shall I couple hell? O, fie!" She choked, placing a hand over her heart and breathing heavily. "Hold, hold, my heart. And you, my sinews, grow not instant old, but bear me stiffly up." She turned to the place the ghost had disappeared and kept her back against the bars. "Remember thee?"

She spun around again and gripped the bars tightly in her fists until her knuckles turned white and ground out, "Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat in this distracted globe. _Remember_ thee? Yea, from the table of my memory I'll wipe away all trivial fond records, all saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, that youth and observation copied there, and thy commandment all alone shall live with the book and volume of my brain, unmixed with baser matter. Yes, by heaven!"

She scoffed with a smirk, shaking her head and setting her forehead on the bars, breathing, "O, most pernicious woman. O villain, villain, smiling damned _villain_!"

Hamletta kicked the bars and turned again.

"My tables – meet it is I set it down, that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain," she ground out. "At least I'm sure it may be so on the _Denmark_."

"So," she scoffed. "Uncle, there you are."

She knelt down and pulled her dagger from her boot before stepping toward the place the ghost of her father had disappeared and lifted her hand and the dagger.

"Now to my word," she ground out, pressing the tip of her dagger into the palm of her hand until she drew blood. "It is, 'Adieu, adieu. Remember me.'" She pressed her bleeding hand to the wood and smeared it over the boards. "I have sworn't."

She heard the trampling of Marcellus and Horatio running down the stairs as they both called out and couldn't help but start laughing.

"My lady!" Horatio called. "My lady!"

"Lady Hamletta!" Marcellus called.

"Heaven secure her!" Horatio pleaded.

"So be it," Hamletta chuckled, shoving away from the wall and spinning around the cell, laughing maniacally.

"Hillo, ho, ho, my lady!" Horatio called.

"Hillo, ho, ho, boy!" she laughed. "Come, bird, come!"

She stopped just as the two men headed down the steps and into the cell and she tucked her dagger away.

"How is't, my noble lady?" Marcellus asked, both approaching cautiously as she swung her arms side to side.

"What news, my lady?" Horatio wondered.

"O, wonderful," Hamletta sighed, sitting on the bench below the place she'd smeared her own blood and the two men sat on either side of her.

"Good my lady, tell it," Horatio begged.

She glanced between the two, pursing her lips to one side of her mouth then waving them off, replying, "No. You'll reveal it."

"Not I, my lady," Horatio promised making her swing her head toward him. "By heaven."

"Nor I, my lady," Marcellus chimed in, making her swing her head toward him before she stood.

"How say you then," she sighed before whirling around and looking to the two of them. "Would heart of man once think it? But you'll be secret?"

"Ay, by heaven, my lady," Horatio repeated, Marcellus nodding in agreement and Hamletta bit the corner of her lip in thought before stepping between them and kneeling.

"There's ne'er a villain dwelling in the _Denmark_," she whispered, glancing between them before standing and stepping to lean forward against the bars, her uninjured hand gripping them tightly. "But he's an arrant knave."

"There needs no ghost, my lady, come from the grave to tell us this," Horatio replied.

"Why, right, you are i' the right," she grinned, shoving off the bars and turned to hold out her hand, saying, "And so, without more circumstances at all, I hold it fit that we shake hand and part."

She shook their hands, pulling each one up to his feet as she did, continuing, "You, as your business and desire shall point you, for every man has business and desire, such as it is, and for mine own poor part, look you, I'll go pray."

Hamletta turned to head out of the cell, but Horatio stopped her.

"These are but wild and whirling words, my lady," he called, making her stop and turn back to her. She leaned sideways on the doorframe.

"I'm sorry they offend you, heartily," she smiled. "Yes, 'faith heartily."

"There's no offense, my lady," Horatio objected, and his eyes widened when she ran at him, one hand gripping his collar.

"Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there _is_, Horatio," she ground out. "And _much_ offense too. Touching this vision here, it _is_ an honest ghost, that let me tell you. For your desire to know what is between us, o'ermaster 't as you may." She shoved away from and back toward the door. "And now, good friends, as you are friends, sailors and soldiers, give me one poor request."

"What is't, my lady?" Horatio asked. "We will."

"Never make known what you have seen tonight," Hamletta ordered.

"My lady, we will not," Marcellus instantly replied.

"Nay, but _swear't_," Hamletta growled, pointing to the spot she'd smeared her blood on the wood and the two men placed their hands on the spot.

"In faith, my lady," Horatio replied. "Not I."

"Nor I, my lady, in faith," Marcellus replied but Hamletta felt she needed more reassurance and drew her sword.

"Upon my sword," she demanded, stepping toward the two and setting the tip upon the bench wood.

"We have sworn, my lady, already," Marcellus reminded her.

"Indeed, upon my sword, indeed," Hamletta urged.

"_Swear!_" the voice of Hamletta's father rumbled through the brig and she looked around with a frown.

"Ah ha, boy!" she called with a grin. "Say'st thou so? Art thou there, truepenny?" She ran from the cell and into another, waving the two men with her toward her. "Come on – you hear this fellow in the cellarage – Consent to swear."

Just as the two ran into the cell and set their hands upon the sword the ghost shouted, "_Swear!_"

"Hic et ubique?" (Here and in all places?) Hamletta frowned, pulling her sword away and heading into another cell. "Then we'll shift our ground. Come hither, gentlemen, and lay your hands again upon my sword." She waved her friends into the cell and they rushed toward her. "Never to speak of this that you have heard, swear by my sword."

"_Swear!_" the ghost shouted again and Hamletta perked up, looking around again.

"Well said, old mole!" she called running out and into the cell they'd started in. "Canst work i' the earth so fast? A worthy pioneer! Once more remove, good friends!"

"O day and night," Horatio panted as he and Marcellus once again knelt down to place their hands on the sword. "But this is wonderous strange!"

Hamletta knelt next to him, sword standing upright on its tip and their eyes locked as she set a hand on his shoulder.

"And therefore as a stranger give it welcome," she breathed. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Remembering herself she shifted to glance between them, saying, "But come, here, as before, never, so help you mercy, how strange or odd soe'er I bear myself, as I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on…"

She stood and let the two men hold the sword as they watched her as she gestured with her explanation.

"That you, at such times seeing me, never shall, with arms encumbered thus, or by this headshake, or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase, as 'Well, well, we know,' or 'We could, an if we would,' or 'If we list to speak,' or 'There be, an if they might," or such ambiguous giving out, to note that you know _aught_ of me. This _not_ to do."

She knelt down with them again and begged, "So grace and mercy at your most need help you, swear!"

"_Swear!_" the ghost shouted and Hamletta let the men alone, cowering in fear as they shouted out that they swore as she stepped toward the place she'd smeared her blood and set the hand she'd smeared it with on the stain.

"Rest," she whispered. "Rest, perturbed spirit."

She waited for the rumbling to stop before she smirked and turned to the men still kneeling and knelt with them.

"So, gentlemen, with all my love I do commend me to you," she replied. "And what so poor a woman as Hamletta is may do, to express her love and friending to you, god willing, shall not lack."

She stood, resting her hands upon their shoulders to signal them to stand, which they did.

"Let us go in together, and still your fingers on you lips, I pray."

She pressed her fingers to her lips before pressing one on each hand to their lips gently in demonstration. They nodded and Horatio handed her sword to her which she took and sheathed before she turned to the spot she'd spread her blood.

_This time is out of joint_, she thought in dismay. _O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right._

"Nay, come," she urged. "Let's go together."

They all headed toward the steps and she couldn't help but smirk at her own genius, and the wheels turning in her head.

* * *

_Aboard the Elsinore..._

Ophelio leaned forward on the railing of the starboard side of the _Elsinore_, his head in his hands. Polonius strode the deck and spotting his son he frowned in wonder as he stepped toward him, coming up next to him.

"How now, Ophelio," he wondered, making Ophelio jump with a start and turn to his father as he slapped his back. "What's the matter?"

"O, my lord, my lord," Ophelio sighed, leaning his head into his hands again. "I have been so affrighted."

"With what, i' the name of God?" Polonius frowned.

"My lord," Opehlio began, standing tall and placing his hands on his father's arms. "As I was reading in my cabin, Lady Hamletta, with her vest all unbraced, no hat upon her head, her boots fouled, ungarter'd and down-gyved to her ankle, pale as her shirt, her knees knocking each other and with a look so piteous in purport as if she had been loosed out of hell to speak of horrors – she comes before me."

"Mad for thy love?" Polonius guessed.

"My lord, I do not know," Ophelio sighed, letting his father go and leaning on the rail again to look into the water. "But truly, I do fear it."

"What said she?" Polonius asked, leaning on the railing as well and watching his son as he still looked away from him, even as he spoke.

"She took me by the wrist and held me hard," Ophelio began. "Then goes she to the length of all her arm and, with her other hand thus o'er her brow, she falls to such perusal of my face as she would draw it. Long stayed she so. At last, a little shaking of mine arm and thrice her head thus waving up and down, she raised a sigh, so piteous and profound as it did seem to _shatter_ all her bulk and end her being. That done, she lets me go and, with her head over her shoulder turned, she seemed to find her way with her eyes, for out o' doors she went without their helps and, to the last, bended their light on me."

Polonius sighed before turning to Ophelio and placing a hand on his back and assured, "Come, go with me. I will go seek the king. This is the very ecstasy of love, whose violent property fordoes itself and leads the will to desperate undertakings as oft as any passion under heaven that does afflict out natures. I am sorry. What, have you given her any hard words of late?"

Ophelio turned wide eyes at his father in disbelief and straightened as Polonius' hand fell away to his side and he recalled, "No, my good lord, but, as you did command, I did repel her fetters and denied her access to me."

"That hath made him mad," Polonius nodded in understanding before placing his hand back on his son's shoulder. "I am sorry that with better heed and judgment I had not quoted her. I feared she did but trifle and meant to wreck thee, but beshaw my jealousy. By heaven, it is as proper to our age to cast beyond ourselves in our opinions as it is common for the younger sort to lack discretion." He patted Ophelio's shoulder, saying, "Come, go we to the king. This must be known, which, being kept close, might move. More grief to hide than hate to utter love."


	5. The Player Meets the Players

_**Chapter 5: The Player Meets the Players**_

Claudius sat at his desk with Gertrude next to him as they looked over some charts in front of him. A knock on the door caught their attention before it opened and two young people stepped in. A blonde woman with amber eyes dressed in red and white and a tall man, also blonde with light gray eyes and dressed all in gray. Claudius grinned and rose to lead Gertrude toward the two by the hand.

"Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!" he grinned, shaking their hands each. "Moreover that we much did long to see you, the need we have to use you did provoke our hasty sending."

He slid his arm around Gertrude's shoulders as she shook the couple's hands as well.

"Something you have heard of Hamletta's transformation. So call it, sith nor the exterior not the inward man resembles that it was."

The two nodded, solemnly before he continued.

"What it should be, more than her father's death, that thus hath put her so much from the understanding of herself, I cannot dream of. I entreat you both, that, being of so young days brought up with her, and sith so neighbored to her youth and havior, that you vouchsafe your rest here in our court some little time. So by your companies to draw her on to pleasures, and to gather, so much as from occasion you may glean, whether aught, to us known, afflicts her thus, that, opened, lies within our remedy."

"Good gentlepeople," Gertrude smiled, stepping toward them and taking hand from them each to hold them warmly. "She hath much talked of you, and sure I am two people there are not living to whom she more adheres. If it will please you to show us so much gentry and good will as to expend your time with us awhile, for the supply and profit of our hope, your visitation shall receive such thanks as fits a king's remembrance."

"Both your majesties might, by the sovereign power you have of us, put your dread pleasures more into command than to entreaty," the blonde woman, Rosencrantz smiled, patting Gertrude's hand with her free one.

"But we obey," the man, Guildenstern assured, nodding as he continued, "and here give up ourselves, in the full bent to lay our service freely at your feet, to be commanded."

"Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern," Claudius nodded.

"Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz," Gertrude thanked again. "And I beseech you _instantly_ to visit my too much changed daughter. So, some of you, and bring these gentlepeople where Hamletta is."

"Heavens make our presence and our practices pleasant and helpful to her," Guildenstern hoped.

"Ay, amen!" Gertrude smiled with a nod, entreating them to find Hamletta. Just as the two nodded respectfully and headed out of the cabin just as Polonius passed them and Claudius with Gertrude stepped behind his desk again. Claudius waved on to Polonius, entreating him to speak.

"The ambassadors from the _Norway_, my good lord, are joyfully returned," Polonius reported.

"Thou still hast been the father of good news," Claudius nodded with a smirk, sitting in his chair and patting his knee to entreat Gertrude to sit upon it, which she did.

"Have I, my lord?" Polonius smirked, stepping closer to the desk and leaning upon it with his hands. "I assure my good liege, I hold my duty, as I hold my soul, both to my God and to my gracious king. And I do think, or else this brain of mine hunts not the trail of policy so sure as it hath used to do, that I have found the very cause of Hamletta's lunacy."

"O, speak of that," Claudius ordered. "_That_ I do long to hear."

"Give first admittance to the ambassadors," Polonius advised, standing tall again. "My news shall be the fruit to that great feast."

"Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in," Claudius nodded and Polonius headed out of the cabin as the king turned to Gertrude, placing a hand on her knee. "He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found the head and source of all your daughter's distemper."

"I doubt it is no other but the _main_," Gertrude objected. "Her father's death, and our…o'erhasty marriage."

"Well, we shall sift him," Claudius assured her just as Polonius entered, followed by Voltimand and Cornelius. He gently tapped Gertrude to stand as he did and they both stepped toward the three to take a hand each and shake it, saying, "Welcome, my good friends! Say, Voltimand, what from our brother on the _Norway_?"

"Most fair return of greetings and desires," Voltimand reported. "Upon our first, he sent out to suppress his nephew's levies, which to him appeared to be a preparation 'gainst the _Polack_, but, better looked into, he truly found it was against your highness. Whereat grieved, that so his sickness, age and impotence was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests on Fortinbras, which he, in brief, obeys, receives rebuke from the captain of the _Norway_, overcome with joy, gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee, and his commission to employ those sailors, so levied as before, against the _Polack_, with an entreaty, herein further shown…"

Cornelius reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a piece of parchment to hand to the king as Voltimand continued, "That is might please you to give quiet pass through your dominions for this enterprise, on such regards of safety and allowance as therein are set down."

"It likes us well," Claudius grinned, taking the parchment. "And at our more considered time well read, answer, and think upon this business. Meantime we thank you for your well-took labor. Go to your rest. At night we'll feast together. Most welcome home!"

The two bowed out of the room leaving the doors to the cabin open as Polonius turned to Claudius and Gertrude as they sat once again behind the desk.

"This business is well ended," Polonius nodded. "My liege, and madam, to expostulate what majesty should be, what duty is, why day is day, night night, and time is time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief. Your noble daughter is mad."

Gertrude sighed in exasperation, making Claudius smile and pat her hand to give her patience as his first mate continued.

"Mad I call it, for, to define true madness, what is't but to be nothing else but mad? But let that go."

"More matter, with less art," Gertrude begged.

"Madam, I _swear_ I use no art at all," Polonius objected with a frown. "That he is mad, 'tis true. 'Tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true. A foolish figure, but farewell it, for I will use no art. Mad let us grant her, then, and now remains that we find out the cause of this effect, or rather say, the cause of this _de_fect, for this effect defective come by cause. Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend. I have a son – have while he is mine – who, in his duty and obedience, mark, hath given me this. Now gather and surmise."

Polonius pulled a piece of parchment from his vest pocket and opened it to read, "'To the celestial and my soul's idol, the most beautified Ophelio,' – That's an ill phrase. A vile phrase. 'Beautified' is a _vile_ phrase. But you shall hear. Thus, 'In his excellent white bosom…these…etc…"

"Came this from Hamletta to him?" Gertrude wondered, standing from her husband's knee to hurry toward Polonius and look at the letter he read from but he pulled it out of her view.

"Good madam, stay awhile," he begged then assured, "I will be faithful. 'Doubt thou the stars are fire. Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, but _never_ doubt I love. O dear Ophelio, I am ill at these numbers, I have not art to reckon my groans, but that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu. Thine evermore most dear lord, whilst this machine is to her, _Hamletta_." This in obedience, hath my son shown me, and more above, hath her solicitings, as they fell out by time, by means and place, all given to mine ear."

"But how hath he received her love?" Claudius questioned as Gertrude finally took the letter from Polonius and the king stood to step toward them.

"What do you think of me?" Polonius questioned as Claudius stood with them.

"As of a man, faithful and honorable," Claudius replied.

"I would fain prove so," Polonius nodded. "But what might you think, when I had seen this hot love on the wing – as I perceived it, I must tell you, before my son told me – what might you, or my dear majesty your queen here, think, if I had played the desk or table-book, or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb, or looked upon this love with idle sight, what might you think? No, I went round to work, and my young master thus I did bespeak: 'Lady Hamletta is a princess, out of thy star, this must not be.' And then I precepts gave him, that he should lock himself from her resort, admit to messengers, receive no tokens. Which done, he took the fruits of my advice, and she, repulsed – a short take to make – fell into a sadness, then into a fast, thence to a lightness, and, by this declension, into the madness wherein now she raves, and all we mourn for."

Claudius looked to his queen and asked, "Do you think 'tis this?"

"It may be, very likely," she admitted, still examining the letter her daughter had written.

"Hath there been such a time – I'd fain know that – that I have positively said 'Tis so' when it proved otherwise?" Polonius frowned to his captain.

"Not that I know," Claudius confirmed.

Polonius set his hand from his head to his shoulder, saying, "Take this from this, if this be otherwise. If circumstances lead me, I will find where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed with the center."

"How may we try this further?" Claudius wondered.

"You know, sometimes she walks four hours together there on the main deck," Polonius guessed, gesturing to the deck outside the open doors.

"So he does indeed," Gertrude confirmed before he continued.

"At such a time I'll loose my son to her, be you and I behind the stairs then, mark the encounter. If she love him not from her reason fallen thereon, let me be no assistant for a state, but keep a farm and carters."

"We will try it," Claudius nodded in agreement before catching Gertrude staring out the open doors of the cabin.

"But, look, where sadly the poor wretch comes, reading," she noticed, seeing Hamletta stroll slowly up one of the hatches with her nose in a book and Polonius hurried toward the doors.

"I'll board him presently," he assured them, shutting the doors and leaning back on the handles of the doors as she nearly ran into him before looking up from her book. "O, give me leave. How does my good lady Hamletta?"

"Well," she chirped with a grin and a quick nod before frowning at his face and stepping close to examine his face, breathing, "God-a-mercy."

"Do you…know me, my lady?" Polonius wondered, hesitantly with a frown of confusion at her.

"_Excellent_ well," Hamletta grinned, slapping his shoulder before wagging a knowing finger at him. "You're a fishmonger."

"Not I, my lady," Polonius corrected, following her as she turned to head toward the railing.

"Then I would you were so honest a man," she replied, leaning back on the railing.

"Honest, my lady," Polonius nodded, stopping a few feet in front of her.

"Ay, sir," she nodded. "To be honest, as this world goes, is to be _one_ man picked out of ten thousand!"

"That's very true, my lady," Polonius nodded.

Hamletta pointed from the sky to the deck as she said, "For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion-"

She stopped abruptly and stepped closer to Polonius, looking around the deck suspiciously before whispering, "Have you a son?"

"I have, _two_, my lady," Polonius nodded.

"Let them not walk i' the sun," she replied. "Conception is a blessing, but not as your sons may conceive. Friend…" She glanced around before pressing a finger to his chest and whispering, "look to 't."

She stepped back to the railing to lean back against and read her book as Polonius thought to himself, _Still harping on my son. Yet she knew me not at first, she said I was a fishmonger. She __is__ far gone, far gone. And truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love, very near this. I'll speak to her again_.

"What do you read, my lady?" he wondered, taking only one step toward her and she looked up at him with a frown.

"Words," she chirped before looking away and sighing out, as if her thoughts were haunted, "Words…words."

"What is the _matter_, my lady?" he asked more specifically, catching Hamletta's attention and she frowned at him a moment before responding.

"Between who?" she asked.

"I mean, that matter that you _read_, my lady," Polonius explained.

"_Slanders_, sir," she replied, hurrying toward him and showing him the book, pointing at the passage she had been eyeing, saying, "For the satirical rogue says here that old men have _grey_ _beards_, that their faces are _wrinkled_, their eyes purging _thick amber_ and _plum-tree gum_ and that they have a plentiful _lack_ of wit, together with most _weak_ hams."

She shut the book in one hand with a clap before Polonius could read where she'd been pointing and she continued, "All which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently _believe_, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus _set down_, for yourself, sir, should be old as I am…if like a crab you could go _backward_."

Hamletta shrugged before opening the book again and strolling toward the railing again, leaning forward this time on it, her back to him.

_Though this be madness, yet there is method in't_, he admitted to himself before asking, "Will you walk out of the air, my lady?"

"Into my grave," she replied, not looking at him.

"Indeed, that _is_ out o' the air," he agreed, before thinking to himself, _How pregnant sometimes her replies are! A happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave her, and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between her and my son._

"My honorable lady, I will most humbly take my leave of you," he requested, making her spin around, closing the book again and leaning back against the railing again.

"You cannot, air, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal," she sighed before looking away and just as haunted as before murmured, "Except my life…except my life…except my life."

"Fare you well, my lady," Polonius replied, hesitantly, heading toward the other side of the ship to climb down and head back to the _Elsinore_, pausing when he noticed two youngsters heading toward Hamletta.

She scoffed and jumped up onto the railing to sit and read, muttering, "These tedious old fools."

"You go to seek the Lady Hamletta, there she is," Polonius gestured to Hamletta as she ignored them all for a moment, not caring who he was speaking to and the first mate headed over the railing.

"God save you, sir," Rosencrantz called down to him before heading toward Hamletta with Guildenstern.

"My honored lady!" he grinned, stepping to one side as Rosencrantz ran to the other side.

"My most _dear_ lady!" Rosencrantz grinned.

Hamletta jumped and looked to either side of her with eyes before grinning and tossing the book over her shoulder into the sea. Her two friends watched the book fall into the water with a plop with wide eyes as Hamletta jumped down from the railing, looking over her shoulder at it herself before shrugging and looking back to her friends.

"My excellent good friends!" she smiled, shaking a hand each. "How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lad and lass, how do ye both?"

"As the indifferent children of the earth," Rosencrantz grinned.

"Happy," Guildenstern threw in. "In that we are not over-happy, on fortune's cap we are not the very button."

"Nor the soles of her shoe?" Hamletta guessed.

"Neither, my lady," Rosencrantz corrected.

"Then you live about her waist," she guessed at Rosencrantz then tapped Guildenstern's chest saying, "And _you_ in the middle of her favors?"

"'Faith, her privates we," Guildenstern laughed, nervously.

"In the secret parts of fortune?" Hamletta nodded with a weak smile. "O, most true, she is a strumpet."

She glanced around, feeling as though she were being watched and waved her friends to follow her as she asked, "What's the news?"

"None, my lady," Rosencrantz replied as the three headed down the steps of a hatch in the middle of the deck. "But that the world's grown honest."

"Then is doomsday near," Hamletta laughed, not saying anything else until they headed further into the bowels of the ship. Once they reached the brig she finally noticed, "But your news is not true."

She sat on a bench in one of the cells and her friends stood at the door.

"Let me question more in particular," she determined. "What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?"

"Prison, my lady?" Guildenstern frowned.

"The _Denmark's_ a prison," Hamletta replied, seriously.

"Then is the world one," Rosencrantz shrugged, leaning on the bars of the doorframe as she flipped her blonde hair from her face.

"A goodly one," Hamletta nodded in agreement. "In which there are many confines, wards and dungeons, the _Denmark_ being one o' the worst."

"We think not so, my lady," Rosencrantz objected as Guildenstern wrung his hands behind his back, nervously.

"Why, then, 'tis none to you," Hamletta shrugged, lifting a foot to set it next o her on the bench and leaning her arm on it. "For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking _makes_ it so." She sighed, leaning her head back on the bars dividing her cell and the one next to it, staring at the ceiling and sighing, "To me it is a prison."

"Why then, your ambition makes it one," Rosencrantz guessed, shoving off the bars to step into the cell and stand next to Hamletta, crossing her arms over her chest. "'Tis too narrow for your mind."

"O God," Hamletta laughed, breathily, closing her eyes. "I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself the queen of infinite space…were it not that I have bad dreams."

"Which dreams indeed are ambition," Guildenstern determined, stepping into the cell as well to sit at Hamletta's feet on the bench. "For the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream."

"A dream itself is but a shadow," Hamletta sighed.

"Truly," Rosencrantz nodded. "And I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow's shadow."

"Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggars' shadows," Hamletta sighed, then glanced between the two before standing and heading to the door, saying, "Shall we to the _Elsinore_? For, by my fay, I cannot reason."

"We will wait upon you," both Rosencrantz and Guildenstern replied as they stood, frowning at each other and Hamletta stopped at the door, frowning herself before she turned and leaned on the doorframe.

"No such matter," she smirked. "I will not sort you with the rest of my crew, for, to speak to you like an honest woman, I am most dreadfully attended." She stepped toward them and crossed her arms over her chest as she glanced between the two and asked, "But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at the _Denmark_?"

"To visit you, my lady," Rosencrantz smirked, nervously. "No other occasion."

"Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks, but I thank you," Hamletta smiled, and the two gave out a silent sigh of relief, but they both dropped when their lady quickly added, "And sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny. Were you not sent for?"

The two frowned at her, attempting to act as if they didn't understand the question.

"Is it of your own inclining?" she asked and they looked at each other in confusion. "Is it a free visitation?"

They both swallowed as she tapped her foot in impatience and expectance.

"Come, deal justly with me," she snapped. "Come, come! Nay, _speak_!"

"What should we _say_, my lady?" Guildenstern finally asked.

"Why anything to the purpose," Hamletta replied, lifting her hands to wag accusing fingers at their faces. "You were sent for, and there is a kind of confession in your looks which your modesties have not craft enough to color." She crossed her arms over her chest again and sighed, strolling toward the door again. "I _know_ the good king and queen have sent for you."

"To what end, my lady?" Rosencrantz smirked with a shrug, making Hamletta stop and turn to them halfway to the door of the cell.

"That you must teach me," she replied and strolled back toward them. "But let me conjure you, by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal." She stepped directly in front of Rosencrantz and waved her on, ordering, "Be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for, or no?"

Hamletta eyed Rosencrantz who swallowed and stared back at her in silence before she looked up at Guildenstern and asked, "What say you?"

"Nay, then, I have an eye of you," Hamletta retorted, stepping away from them to head out the door. "If you love me, hold not off."

"My lady, we were sent for!" Guildenstern called, stopping her and Rosencrantz elbowed him in the side. He grunted just as Hamletta spun around and leaned on the bars of the cell.

"I will tell you why," she sighed. "So shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and you secrecy to the king and queen molt no feather." She turned her head to stare into space, explaining, "I have of late – but wherefore I know not – lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercise. And indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave, o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors."

She shoved up and stepped deeper into the cell to lean back on the inside, staring up at the ceiling as she scoffed, "What a piece of work is a man. How noble in reason. How infinite in faculty. In form and moving how express and admirable. In action how like an angel. In apprehension how like a _god_. The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals. And yet, to me, what _is_ this quintessence of dust?"

She looked to the two and sighed, "Man delights not me."

Rosencrantz smirked as Guildenstern straightened, shifting on his feet uncomfortably.

"No, nor _woman_ neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so," Hamletta snapped back, turning to truly head out of the cell and up the stairs to the deck.

"My lady, there was no such stuff in my thoughts," Rosencrantz replied, trying to redeem herself and quickly following Hamletta, Guildenstern right behind her.

"Why did you laugh then when I said 'man delights not me'?" Hamletta called back as the three headed up the stairs to the deck.

"To think, my lady," Rosencrantz said as they emerged onto the main deck again. "If you delight not in man, what Lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you." Hamletta froze and spun around to stare at them with wide eyes as the blonde woman continued, "We coted them on the way, and hither are they coming, to offer you service."

"He that plays the king shall be welcome," Hamletta breathed and slowly smiled in assurance, "His majesty shall have tribute to me. The adventurous knight shall use his foil and target. The lover shall not sigh gratis. The humorous man shall end his part in peace. The clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o' the sere, and the lady shall say her mind freely, of the blank verse shall halt for't." She hurried toward the two and linked her arms around one on each friend, asking, "What players are they?"

"Even those you were wont to take delight in," Rosencrantz replied, casually. "The tragedians of the city."

"How chances it they travel?" Hamletta wondered with a frown. "Their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways."

"I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation," Rosencrantz guessed.

"Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city?" Hamletta asked. "Are they so followed?"

"No, indeed, they are not," Rosencrantz replied, definitely.

"How comes it?" Hamletta wondered. "Do they grow rusty?"

Guildenstern opened his mouth to reply but the blonde cut in before he began, saying, "Nay, their endeavor keeps in the wonted pace. But there is, madam, an aery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped for't. These are now the fashion, and so berattle the common stages – so they call them – that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills and dare scarce come thither."

"What, are they children?" Hamletta scoffed and looking to each friend with a question, she continued, "Who maintains 'em? How are they escorted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing? Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players – as it is most like, if their means are no better – their writers do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their own succession?"

Guildenstern tried again to get a word in edgewise, but was cut off again by Rosencrantz.

"'Faith," she scoffed, drawing Hamletta attention to her. "There has been much to do on both sides, and the nation holds it no sin to tarre them to controversy. There was, for a while, no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question."

"Is't possible?" Hamletta questioned, and this time, Guildenstern got in his word.

"O, there has been much throwing about of brains," he nodded, catching Hamletta's attention.

"Do the boys carry it away?" she asked, and Rosencrantz spoke up again.

"Ay, that they do, my lady," she replied, whipping Hamletta's attention back to her. "Hercules and his load too."

Hamletta nodded, looking down at the deck for a moment in deep thought. Guildenstern and Rosencrantz both looked to her, trying to catch her gaze to one or the other but she didn't move for a moment. She finally gave a small sigh and straightened, unlinking her arms as she stepped in front of them and spun on her heel.

"It is not very strange," she shrugged. "For mine uncle is the Pirate King, and those that would make mows at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, an hundred ducats a-piece for his picture in little."

She held up her index finger and thumb a centimeter apart in front of her eye, then pretended to squish Rosencrantz's head between them before turning to Guildenstern and doing the same and she stepped closer, pulling her hand down and looking at her fingers.

"'Sblood," she scoffed, stopping directly in front of them, still staring at her fingers. "There is something in this more then natural, if philosophy could find it out."

A burst of laughter came from the quay, catching their attentions and Guildenstern announced, "There are the players."

"Gentlemen, you are welcome aboard the _Denmark_," Hamletta bowed grandly toward them before lifting her hands and beckoning, "Your hands, come then."

Guildenstern and Rosencrantz frowned to each other before taking a hand each on their lady and she spun between them, crossing her arms over, then back again as she continued, "The appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply with you in this garb, lest my extent to the players, which, I tell you, must show fairly outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome. But…"

She pulled herself toward them, slinging her arms around the back of their necks to pull them closer and whisper harshly into their ears, "…my uncle-father and aunt-mother are _deceived_."

"In what, my dear lady?" Guildenstern frowned, itching at the ear she was whispering into.

"I am but mad, north-north-west," she replied, lowering a hand to indicate the directions as she spoke. "When the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw."

She nodded definitely before groaning inwardly at seeing Polonius climbing back aboard the ship.

"Well be with you, gentlepeople!" he called, trying to get his fat leg over the railing as Hamletta turned her friends to face away from him.

"Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too, at each ear a hearer," she entreated in a whisper. "That great baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling-clouts."

"Happily he's the second time come to them," Rosencrantz giggled. "For they say an old man is twice a child."

"I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players," she continued, before nearly shoving away from them, adding, "Mark it." Then saying loudly as she stepped toward Polonius, "You say right, sir. O' Monday morning, 'twas so indeed."

"My lady, I have news to tell you," Polonius panted from his ordeal over the railing.

"My lord, I have news to tell _you_," Hamletta replied, wide-eyed and dramatically turned to place the back of her wrist on her forehead, saying, "When Roscius was an actor in Rome-"

"The actors are come hither, my lady!" Polonius grinned, pointing over the railing excitedly.

Hamletta looked to him out of the corner of her eye, still posed before she lowered her hand from her brow and turned to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, pointing to each of them and grinning, "Buzz! Buzz!"

"Upon mine honor-" Polonius frowned.

"Then came each actor on his ass-" Hamletta frowned back at him.

"The best actors in the world," Polonius confirmed and Hamletta glanced around, looking bored as he continued, "Either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the _only _men."

"O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!" Hamletta grinned, stepping toward him and shaking his hand vigorously, making the other man frown.

"What a treasure had he, my lady?" he wondered.

"Why, 'One fair daughter and no more the which he loved passing well," Hamletta explained with a frown of her own.

_Call she, my son a __daughter__?_ Polonius thought to himself.

"Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah?" Hamletta continued, stepping next to him and slapping a hand on his back.

"If you call me Jephthah, my lady, I have _no_ daughter that I love passing well," he corrected and Hamletta shook her head, placing a hand on her chin in thought.

"Nay, that follows not," she muttered.

"What follows, then, my lady?" Polonius sighed, rolling his eyes at the ridiculousness of her behavior and she looked back at him, this time slapping his chest and making him grunt.

"Why, 'As, by lot, God wot,'" Hamletta explained. "And then, you know, 'It came to pass, as most like it was,'-" Her attention was drawn to the railing again when she noticed more people climbing over it and patted Polonius on the shoulder, saying, "The first row of the pious chanson will show you more, for look, where my abridgement comes."

She hurried toward the five men as they adjusted themselves and shook a hand each on them.

"You are welcome, masters," she grinned, lifting her arms up as she announced, "Welcome all!"

She continued shaking their hands.

"I am glad to see thee well. Welcome, good friends."

She turned to another, older man and grinned, "O, my old friend! Thy face is valenced since I saw thee last. Comest thou to beard me on the _Denmark_?"

Hamletta spotted another face and pointed at him with astonishment, before approaching him, breathing, "What, my young lady and mistress? By'r lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine." She inched closer to murmur, "Pray God, your voice, like apiece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring."

She stepped away and raised her hands again, calling, "Masters, you are _all_ welcome. We'll e'en to't like French falconers, fly at any thing we see."

Hamletta gasped excitedly, clapping her hands together and rubbing them, grinning, "We'll have a speech straight! Come, give us a taste of your quality!" She beckoned still, "Come! A passionate speech!"

"What speech, my lady?" the lead player wondered and Hamletta gave a small frown of thought before coming to a conclusion.

"I heard thee speak me a speech once," she recalled. "But it was never acted…or if it was, above once, for the play, I remember, pleased not the million. 'Twas caviare to the general. But it was – as I received it, and others, whose judgments in such matters cried in the top of mine – an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning.

"I remember, one said there were no sallets in the lines to make the matter savory, not no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of affection, but called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine.

"One speech in it I chiefly loved. 'Twas Aeneas' tale to Dido," she recalled, then frowned in thought, beckoning him to remember it with her as she continued. "And thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of Priam's slaughter…" She grinned up at him and begged, "If it live in your memory, begin at this line…!"

She hoped onto the railing to stand above them all, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern taking steps toward her when they saw her wobble, but she quickly caught her balance and waved them off that she was alright. She snapped her fingers, closing her eyes with a frown of thought as she muttered, "Let me see, let me see…"

She then recited, "'The rugged Pyrrhus, like the…Hyrcanian beast'-" She shook her head when she received frowns of confusion then quickly recalled, "It is not so…it begins with Pyrrhus!"

She clapped her hands as she remembered the line and tried again.

"The rugged Pyrrhus, _he whose sable arms_, black as his purpose, did the night resemble when he lay couched in the ominous horse…hath now this dread of black complexion smeared with heraldry ore dismal…head to foot now is he total gules, horridly tricked with blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons…baked and impasted with the parching streets, that end a tyrannous and damned light to their lord's murder…roasted in wrath and fire, and thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore, with eyes like…carbuncles…"

She seemed to lose the line and one of the players helped her before they both continued, "The hellish Pyrrhus old grandsire Priam seeks."

Hamletta grinned and jumped down, gripping the man's arms gently before stepping away and entreating, "So, proceed you."

She sat at his feet, cross-legged and staring in expectant admiration, the rest following her example and sitting, but Polonius stepped a little closer to annoy her.

"'Fore God, my lady," he began, making her roll her eyes. "Well spoken, with good accent and good discretion."

"Hush!" she snapped back at him and he glared at the back of her head as she turned back to the actor as he began.

"'Anon he finds him,'" he began, gesturing dramatically with every word. "'Striking too short at Greeks, his antique sword, rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls, repugnant to command. Unequal matched, Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage, strikes wide, but with the whiff and wind of his fell sword the unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium, seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear. For lo! His sword, which was declining on the milky head of reverend Priam, seemed i' the air to _stick_. So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood, and like a neutral to his will and matter…did _nothing_. But, as we often see, against some storm, a silence in the heavens, the rack stand still, the bold winds speechless and the orb below as hush as _death_. Anon the dreadful thunder doth rend the region, so, after Pyrrhus' pause, aroused vengeance sets him new a-work, and never did the Cyclops' hammers fall on Mars's armor forged for proof eterne with less remorse then Pyrrhus' bleeding sword now falls on Priam! In general synod "take away her power, break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel, and bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven, as low as to the fiends!"'-"

"This is too long," Polonius interrupted, making all eyes turn to him in glares, but none more so fiery than Hamletta's as she spun on her rear and kicked his shin with her heel, making the old man shout in painful surprise, stooping to grip his injury.

"It shall to the barber's, with your beard!" she snapped, before turning back to the actor and waving Polonius off as she begged, "Prithee, say on. He's for a jig or a tale of bawdry of he sleeps. Say on. Come to Hecuba!"

The player quickly changed his temperament to fit the scene he was about to act.

"'But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen…"

"'The mobled queen…'" Hamletta echoed in a breath of awe.

"That's good," Polonius complimented, recovered quickly from his injury. "'Mobled queen' is good."

"Hush!" Hamletta snapped at him again before the player began again.

"'Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames with bison rheum, a blout upon that head where late the diadem stood, and for a robe, about her land and all o'er-teemed loins, a blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up, who this had seen, with tongue in venom steeped, 'gainst Fortune's state would treason have pronounced.'"

He swallowed back the lump in his throat starting to choke him slightly and continued, "'But if the gods themselves did see her then, when she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport in mincing with his sword her husband's limbs, the instant burst of clamor that she made, unless things mortal move them not at all, would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven, and passion in gods.'"

He lowered his head with a sniffle, rubbing his eyes as if he had a headache and Polonius frowned, noticing the real reason for his actions, Hamletta caught it as well.

"Look, whether he has not turned his color," Polonius reported. "And has _tears_ in's eyes." He looked to Hamletta and begged, "Pray you, no more."

Hamletta stared at the actor for a moment as he wiped the tears from his eyes and she nodded, standing to place a hand on his shoulder and assure him, "'Tis well. I'll have thee speak the rest soon."

She turned to clap, cueing up the rest of the crowd to do the same as the actor tried to humbly wave them off as Hamletta stepped toward Polonius to speak to him.

"Good my lord," she began. "Will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear? Let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live."

"My lady," Polonius chuckled, "I will use them according to their desert."

Hamletta's eyes flashed at him, making him frown in wonder before she snapped, "God's bodykins, man, _much better_!"

Everyone shot their gazes to her and Polonius as she continued, "Use _every_ man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? Use them after your own honor and dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in."

Polonius gave a hesitant nod before lifting a hand to gesture toward the railing and heading toward it, followed by most of the players, saying, "Come, sirs, to the _Elsinore_."

"Follow him, friends," Hamletta urged with a grin. "We'll hear a play tomorrow!"

She hurried toward the actor they'd all heard and stopped him from climbing over the railing to catch his attention, leaning on his shoulder to whisper, "Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play the Murder of Gonzago?"

"Aye, my lady," he nodded with a small frown.

"We'll ha't tomorrow night," she nodded in return. "You could, for a need, study a speech of some…dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in't, could you not?"

"Ay, my lady," he nodded again.

"Very well," Hamletta grinned before gesturing to where Polonius was going to climb over the railing. "Follow that lord, and look you…mock him not."

They both looked to Polonius as he struggled over the railing, making both of them snicker before she slapped him on the back and the actor headed toward the railing as well. She turned around to see Guildenstern and Rosencrantz still there and sighed as she stepped toward them, placing a hand on each of their shoulders.

"My good friends," she smiled, weakly. "I'll leave you till night. You are welcome board the _Denmark_ and, in turn, the _Elsinore_."

"Good, my lady," Rosencrantz grinned, flipping some of her blonde hair from her face.

"Ay," Hamletta nodded, quickly through a breath. "So, God be wi' ye."

She patted them both on the shoulders, before pulling away and raising her arms toward the railing where her friends headed. She turned, acting as though she would head toward one of the hatches before she turned on her heel, mid-step to watch Rosencrantz and Guildenstern climbing over the railing to head to the _Elsinore_. Once they were out of sight, she hurried toward the hatch and down the steps until reaching the brig and. She quickly checked every cell to be sure they were empty until she reached the cell where she'd left her bloody mark on the wall and nearly collapsed in exhaustion, bent over the bench under the mark.

"Now I am alone," she sighed, turning to lean back and lull her head on the wood of the bench to stare at the ceiling for a moment before growling, "O, what a rogue and _peasant_ slave am I!"

She curled her legs up and rested her forearms on her knees then set her head on her arms with a sigh.

"Is it not monstrous that this player here, but in a _fiction_, in a _dream_ of passion, could force his soul so to his own conceit that from her working all his visage wann'd…_tears_ in his eyes…_distraction_ in's aspect, a broken voice, and his whole function suiting with forms to his conceit?"

She threw her head back again and her arms to her sides as she spat, "And all for _nothing_! For _Hecuba_! What's Hecuba to him, or _he_ to _Hecuba_, that he should _weep_ for her?"

She stood and started pacing around the room, throwing her arms about.

"What would he do, had he the motive and the cue for passion that _I_ have? He would _drown_ the stage with tears and cleave the general ear with horrid speech, make the mad guilty and appall the free, confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed the faculties of eyes and ears. Yet _I_…a dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, like a John-a-dreams…unpregnant of my cause, and can say _nothing_. No, not for a king-"

She whirled toward the mark she made and stared at the mark on the wall before sighing and lulling her head back before lowering it into her hands and facing the bars to lean forward on them.

"A king upon whose property and most dear life a damned defeat was made," she muttered before lifting her hands and clutching the bars in front of her to stare into the nothingness outside the cell.

"Am I a coward?" she breathed with a frown. "Who calls me villain? Breaks my pate across? Plucks out my hair and blows it in my face? Tweaks me by the nose? Gives me the lie i' the throat, as deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?"

Her hands clutched the bars until her knuckles turned white and after a moment she shoved away from it, shouting, "Ha! 'Swounds, I should take it! For it cannot be but I am pigeon-livered and lack gall to make oppression bitter, or ere this I should have fatted all the region kites with this slave's offal!"

She sat on the bench again and gripped the edge of it until her knuckles turned white again.

"Bloody, _bawdy_ villain!" she snarled. "Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! O, _vengeance_!"

She slammed her hands on the bench on either side of her in tantrum before sighing in exhaustion and setting her face in her hands.

"Why, what an ass am I!"

She rubbed her face.

"This is most brave," she sighed, lowering her hands again. "That I, the daughter of a dear father murdered, prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words, and fall a-cursing, like a very drab, a scullion!"

She smacked the heels of her hands on her head and hunched over, growling, "Fie upon't! Foh! About my brain!"

Hamletta suddenly stared ahead with wide eyes, leaning forward and rubbing her chin in thought before coming to a thought.

"I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play have by the very cunning of the scene been struck so to the soul that presently they have proclaimed their malefactions. For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak with most _miraculous_ organ."

She leaned her elbows on her knees and her hands in front of her face, her index fingers pressed to her lips. She suddenly snapped her fingers and stood, coming to a conclusion.

"I'll have these players play something like the murder of my father before mine uncle." She paced the width of the cell. "I'll observe his looks, I'll tent him to the quick. If he but _blench_, I know my course. The spirit that I have seen may be the devil, and the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape. Yea, and perhaps out of my weakness and my melancholy, as he is very potent with such spirits, abuses me to damn me."

She stopped, looking to the mark.

"I'll have grounds more relative than this. The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king!"


	6. Lover's Quarrel

_**Chapter 6: Lover's Quarrel**_

"And can you, by no drift of circumstance, get from her why she puts on this confusion, grating so harshly all her days of quiet with turbulent and dangerous lunacy?" Claudius questioned Guildenstern and Rosencrantz as the three of them, Gertrude, Polonius and Ophelio all stood on the main deck of the _Denmark_.

"She does confess she feels herself distracted," Rosencrantz reported, examining her nails. "But from what cause she will by no means speak."

"Nor do we find her forwarded to be sounded," Guildenstern continued. "But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof, when we would bring her on to some confession of her true state."

"Did she receive you well?" Gertrude hoped, holding onto Claudius' arm.

"Most like a lady," Rosencrantz nodded, pulling her hands behind her back.

"But with much forcing of her disposition," Guildenstern added, causing Rosencrantz to elbow him in the side, still grinning at the King and Queen.

"Niggard of question," she recovered. "But, of our demands, most _free_ in her reply."

"Did you assay her to any pastime?" Gertrude wondered.

"Madam, it so fell out, that certain players we o'er-raught on the way," Rosencrantz explained. "Of these we told her, and there did seem in her a kind of joy to hear of it. They are about the crew, and, as I think, they have already order this night to play before her."

"'Tis most true," Polonius nodded. "And she beseeched me to entreat your majesties to hear and see the matter."

"With all my heart," Claudius agreed. "And it doth much content me to hear her so inclined." He turned to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, detaching from Gertrude to set a hand each on their shoulders. "Good gentlepeople, give her a further edge, and drive her purpose on to these delights."

"We shall, my lord," Rosencrantz nodded and she and Guildenstern headed off the ship to head toward the _Elsinore_ as Claudius turned back to Gertrude.

"Sweet Gertrude, leave us too," he commanded, gently. "For we have closely sent for Hamletta hither, that she, as 'twere by accident, may here affront Ophelio. Her father and myself, lawful espials, will so bestow ourselves that, seeing, unseen, we may of their encounter frankly judge, and gather by her, as she is behaved, if't be the affliction of her love or no that thus she suffers for."

"I shall obey you," Gertrude sighed in disappointment before stepping toward Ophelio, taking his hands. "And for your part, Ophelio, I do wish that your good beauties be the happy cause of Hamletta's wildness. So shall I hope your virtues will bring her to her wonted way again, to _both_ your honors."

"Madam, I wish it may," Ophelio nodded with a smile and Gertrude smiled in return before heading into the captain's cabin.

"Ophelio," Polonius began, gripping his son's arm and pulling him toward one of the hatches. "Walk you here. Gracious, so please you, we will bestow ourselves." He handed her a book, making Ophelio sigh in exasperation and his father instructed, "Read on this book. That show of such an exercise may color your loneliness. We are oft to blame for this – 'Tis too much proved – that with devotion's visage and pious action we do sugar o'er that devil himself."

_O, 'tis too true!_ Claudius thought, watching Polonius and Ophelio. _How smart a lash that speech both give my conscience! The Harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art, is not more ugly to the thing that helps it than is my deed to my most painted word. O heavy burthen!_

"I hear him coming," Polonius called, hurrying toward Claudius and pulling him from his thoughts. "Let's withdraw, my lord."

The two men hurried toward the stairs next to the captain's cabin to conceal themselves beneath them as Ophelio hurried down the hatch just as Hamletta pulled herself over the railing, having come from the _Elsinore_. She leaned back on the railing with a sigh of exhaustion, her head lulled back and staring at the sky. She remained that way for a long time before she sighed again.

"To be, or not to be," she murmured. "That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows or outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?"

She shoved off the railing, limply and sat down to lie down on the wood of the deck on her back, her feet at the railing as she threw one arm over her eyes.

"To die," she sighed. "To sleep. No more, and by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die…to _sleep_. To sleep, perchance to _dream_. Aye, there's the rub. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law's delay, the insolence of office and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin?"

She threw her arm off her face and lay sprawled out across the deck, still on her back.

"Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make _cowards_ of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pith the moment with this regard their current turn awry, and lose in action—"

She ceased when she heard boot steps coming up one of the hatches, whispering to herself, "Soft you now!"

Hamletta craned her neck back to rest the top of her head on the wood to see an upside-down image of Ophelio coming out of one of the hatches…_pretending_ to read the book in his hand and holding something else.

"The fair Ophelio," she breathed through a small smile before rolling onto her stomach and standing, catching Opehlio's attention as she approached him with open arms and saying, "Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered."

"Good, my lady—" he jerked with a grunt when Hamletta through her arms around him, hugging him close with her cheek upon his chest, and he sputtered, "How does…your honor for this many a day?"

Hamletta scoffed before pulling back and sliding her hands onto his chest, resting them there as she whispered, "I humbly thank you. Well…well…well."

Ohphelio swallowed, stepping away, his expression solemn as he remained stiff, and he looked to what he was holding as she frowned at him but he only said, "My lady…I have remembrances of yours, that I have longed long to redeliver. I pray you, now receive them."

"No, not I," Hamletta frowned, looking to what he was fumbling with behind the book. "I never gave you aught."

Ophelio finally looked to her with eyes as she still frowned at him and his demeanor softened slightly as he stepped toward her again, holding something between them.

"My honored lady," he whispered. "You know right well you _did_. And, with them, words of so sweet breath composed as made the things more rich." He took one of her hands in his and pressed the letters into it. "Their perfume lost, take these again. For to the noble mind rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. There, my lady."

He quickly turned and tried to make an exit as Hamletta frowned down at the letters, examining them and she gave a laugh before looking to his back and calling, "Are you honest?"

Ophelio stopped with a frown and turned to ask, "My lady?"

"Are you fair?" she replied, stepping toward him, still holding the letters.

"What means you ladyship?" he still frowned.

"That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty," Hamletta explained, a tremor in her voice.

"Could beauty, my lady, have better commerce than with honesty?" Ophelio replied, still frowning.

"Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd then the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness," she answered, then looked to the letters again, looking then over as she murmured, "This was a paradox, but now the time gives it proof." She looked up at him again with watery eyes to breathe, "I did love you once."

"Indeed, my lady," Ophelio nodded, straightening. "You made me believe so."

Hamletta gripped his coat lapels and rapidly replied, "You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate out old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you _not_."

"I was the more deceived," Ophelio choked out and Hamletta's lower lip quivered slightly before she shoved him away, making him stumble back in wide-eyed shock. The letters fluttered to the wood as the book in Ophelio's hand thudding onto the deck.

"Get thee ashore!" she snapped. "Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had _not_ borne me! I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at me beck then I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in!"

She hurried toward him again to grip his coat collar again.

"What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant wenches all! Believe none of us! Get thy ways ashore!"

Her keen hearing caught a creek of wood behind her, subtle, but apparently enough to draw Ophelio's attention as well, but he quickly looked back at her. She glanced over her shoulder, toward the stairs, but saw nothing before she turned back to Ophelio.

"Where's your father?" she asked.

"At home, my lady," he replied, but he glanced to the stairs, knowing she would catch it.

Hamletta gave a huge nod, letting go of Ophelio and winking at him with a smirk before she moved away from him, calling loudly, "Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the _fool_ no where but in's own house! Farewell."

She turned to the railing on one end of the ship and climbed up into it as if ready to jump into the water below. Let the show begin.

"O, help her, you sweet heavens!" Ophelio called, before running toward her as she spun around to face him, still stand on the railing.

"If thou _dost_ marry, I'll give thee this _plague_ for thy dowry!" Hamletta spat, making Ophelio stop in his tracks, just as he reached her. "Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny! Get thee ashore! Go, farewell! Or, if tou wilt _needs_ marry, marry a _fool_. For wise women knew well enough what monsters you make of them. Ashore, go, and quickly too! Farewell!"

She jumped down and raced to the other end of the ship to jump onto the railing there, almost falling forward, but catching herself on a line as Opehlio ran after her.

"O heavenly powers, restore her!" he called, stopping again in front of her as she turned.

"I have heard of your paintings too, well enough," she started again. "God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another! You jig, you amble and you lisp, and nickname God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance! Go to, I'll no more on't! It hath made me _mad_!"

She threw an arm out, one hand still on the line and she soon placed a thoughtful finger on her chin, looking up at the sky as such.

"I say, we will have no more marriages," she continued. "Those that are married already, all but one, shall live. The rest shall keep as they are."

She jumped down in front of him and pulled him toward her by the collar, planting her lips to his, and the shock made him stare at her as she shut her eyes tightly. She pulled her face away from his, her eyes shooting open and they stared at each other a moment before she pushed him away and turned to the railing to climb down to the dock again, calling, "Ashore, go!"

Ophelio hurried to the railing, leaning over it to watch her climb down and when she landed on the dock, she looked up, blowing a kiss to him before bounding off toward the _Elsinore_. He turned and leaned back on the railing with an exhausted sigh as he sunk down to sit and lean back on the wood.

"O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!" he breathed, staring at the sky. "The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword…the expectancy and rose of the fair state, the glass of fashion and the mould of form, the observed of all observers, quite, quite down! And I, of lords most deject and wretched, that sucked the honey of her music vows, now see that noble and most sovereign reason, like sweet bells jangled , out of tune and harsh…that unmatched form and feature of blown youth blasted with ecstasy."

He curled his legs up and leaned his forehead into his hands, shuddering, "O, woe is me, to have seen what I have seen, see what I see!"

"Love?" Claudius began, drawing Polonius' attention away from his now sobbing son. "Her affections do not that way tend. Nor what she spake, though it lacked form a little, was not like madness. There's something in her soul, o'er which her melancholy sits on brood, and I do doubt the hatch and the disclose will be some danger, which for to prevent, I have in quick determination thus set it down. She shall with speed to England, for the demand of our neglected tribute haply the seas and countries different with variable objects shall expel this something-settled matter in her heart, whereon her brains still beating puts her thus from fashion of herself." He turned to Polonius and asked, "What think you on't?"

"It shall do well," he nodded as they stepped out from their hiding place and toward Ophelio. "But yet do I believe the origin and commencement of his grief sprung from neglected love."

He stopped next to his son and held a hand down to him.

"How now, Ophelio. You need not tell us what Lady Hamletta said, we heard it all."

Ophelio looked to his father's hand before standing on his own and quickly wiping his face on his sleeve and Polonius looked to his son with a frown before looking to Claudius.

"My lord, do as you please, but if you hold it fit, after the play let her queen mother all alone entreat her to show her grief. Let her be round with Hamletta, and I'll be placed, so please you, in the ear of all their conference. Is the queen finds her not, England send her, of confine her where your wisdom best shall think."

"It shall be so," Claudius nodded as Ophelio turned to lean forward on the railing. "Madness in great ones must not unwatched go."


	7. A Play

_**Chapter 7: A Play**_

Hamletta bustled around the moonlit and torch-lit deck of the _Elsinore_, the players all around it and she stopped next to one of them.

"Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you…trippingly on the tongue," she instructed him. "But if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines."

Catching another player gesturing she ran toward him and instructed, "Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently, for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may it give it smoothness."

She stepped away to address the entire troupe.

"O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very _rags_, to split the ears of the _groundlings_, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise. I would have such a fellow _whipped_ for o'erdoing Termagant…it out-herods Herod. Pray you, avoid it."

"I warrant your honor," the lead player called, catching her attention and she noticed the slight glare he was giving her.

She hurried toward him and leaned an elbow on his shoulder, murmuring, "Be not too tame, neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor."

Hamletta patted his chest as he nodded in acceptance before she looked back to the troupe to finish her instruction.

"Suit the action to the word, the word to the action. With this special o'erstep not the modesty of nature, for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first _and_ now, was and _is_, to hold, as 'twere, the _mirror_ up to nature. To show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this _overdone_, or come tardy off, though it make the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve. The censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it _profanely_, that, neither having the accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so _abominably_."

"I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us, madam," the lead player assured her.

"O, reform it altogether," she nodded in agreement before catching a few of the players laughing and making faces to each other. Looking right at them she moved away from the lead players ear so she wouldn't deafen him when she called, "And let those that play your _clowns_ speak no more than is set down for them, for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too. Though, in the mean time, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered. That's _villainous,_ and show a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it!"

The group of players looked to her with wide eyes as she glared at them before looking to the player she stood next to and entreated, "Go! Make you ready!"

The players headed toward one of the hatches, hurrying past Polonius who stumbled out, glaring after them for almost toppling him over.

"How now, my lord!" Hamletta called, hurrying toward him. "Will the king hear this piece of work?"

"And the queen too, and that presently," Polonius nodded.

"Bid the players make haste," she instructed, spinning him around and nearly shoving him back to the hatch.

She sighed in slight relaxation before nearly screaming with a start as two pairs of hands landed on her shoulders from behind. She drew her sword as she whirled around, and Guildenstern and Rosencrantz took several steps back, laughing as they raised their hands in surrender. Hamletta sighed in exasperation this time, sheathing her sword, glaring at them.

"Will you two help to hasten them?" she snapped, gesturing toward the hatch.

"We will, my lord," Rosencrantz laughed hysterically as Guildenstern quickly started recovering himself and pulled on her arm to lead her toward the hatch.

Hamletta watched them disappear before turning to her right to see a familiar face climbing over the railing and she rushed toward him with a grin.

"What ho, Horatio!" she called, helping him over the railing and throwing herself toward him in a hug.

"Here, sweet lady, at your service," he chuckled, before she pulled away to adjust his hat on his head.

"Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man as e'er my conversation coped withal," she smiled and his eyes widened at her.

"O, my dear lady—"

"Nay, do not think I flatter," she cut in, shaking her head as she began adjusting his shirt, vest and jacket. "For what advancement may I hope from thee that no revenue hast but thy good spirits, to feed and clothe thee?"

She looked away from her task and frowned up at him.

"Why should the poor be flattered?"

She turned back to adjusting his clothes and shook her head.

"No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, and crook the pregnant hinges of the knee where thrift may follow fawning."

She gripped his vest and asked, urgently, "Dost thou hear me? Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice and could of men distinguish, her election hath sealed thee for herself, for thou hast been as one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing, a man that fortune's buffets and rewards hast ta'en with equal thanks, and blest are those whose blood and judgment are so well commingled, that they are not a pipe for fortune's finger to sound what stop she please. Give me that man that is not passion's slave, and I will wear him in my heart's core, aye, in my heart of heart, as I do thee.

"Something too much of this," she looped one of her arms around his to whisper. "There is a play tonight before the king, one scene of it comes near the circumstance which I have told thee of my father's death. I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot, even with the very _comment_ of thy soul observe my uncle. If he occulted guilt do not itself unkennel in one speech, it is a _damned_ ghost that we have seen, and my imaginations are as foul as Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note, for I mine eyes will rivet to his face, and after we will both our judgments join in censure of his seeming."

"Well, my lady," Horatio nodded. "If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing, and 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft."

Their attention was caught to the rattling of the rope ladder and she pulled away from him with racing heart and wide eyes.

"They are coming to the play," she breathed. "I must be idle. Get you a place."

Horatio nodded and quickly stepped to one end of the ship to stand next to the railing as Hamletta shot to the other end and leaned casually on the railing as the king and queen climbed over the railing, followed by Ophelio. Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern climbed up the hatch as well at the sound of the activity and stood on deck as Hamletta only leaned back on her railing, lazily.

"How fares our cousin Hamletta?" Claudius asked as he and Gertrude stood in front of a pair of chair's in front of the captain's cabin.

"Excellent, i' faith," she grinned with a huge wag of her head, corssing one ankle over the other, still leaning back. "Of the chameleon's dish, I eat the air, promised-crammed. You cannot feed capons so."

"I have nothing with this answer, Hamletta," Claudius sighed in exasperation. "These words are not mine."

"No," Hamletta hummed, thoughtfully as she stood. "Nor mine now."

She looked around as if distracted and Claudius made a move to head toward her, his hands clenched into fists, but Gertrude pulled him back by his arm just as Hamletta looked back to the group to address Polonius.

"My lord," she called, catching his attention. "You played once i' the university, you say?"

"That did I, my lady," Polonius nodded, gripping the lapels of his coat and straightening, haughtily. "And was accounted a good actor."

"What did you enact?" Hamletta frowned in wonder.

"I did enact Julius Caesar," Polonius replied. "I was killed i' the Capitol. Brutus killed me."

"It was a brute part of _him_ to kill so capitol a calf there," Hamletta nodded before frowning at her own words then shaking it away and turning to Rosencrantz, asking, "Be the players ready?"

"Aye, my lady," she nodded. "They stay upon your patience."

"Come hither, my dear Hamletta," Gertrude called through a smile, gesturing to her left as she and Claudius sat in the chairs. "Sit by me."

"No, good mother," Hamletta grinned, mischievously as she strolled toward Ophelio and gripped his jacket to pull him back to where she'd been standing. "Here's metal more attractive."

"O, ho! Do you mark _that_?" Polonius muttered to Claudius, leaning toward him to do so.

"Sir, shall I lie in you lap?" Hamletta asked as she leaned him back on the railing, facing him as she still smiled.

"N-No, my lady," he sputtered, his eyes wide at her.

"I mean, my head _upon_ your lap?" she corrected, lifting a hand to stroke his lower lip.

"A-Aye, my lady." Ophelio cleared his throat as he looked away from her to watch the others around them…staring at them.

"Do you think I meant country matters?" she murmured through a smirk, lowering her hand from his face to take one of his hands in hers.

"I think nothing, my lady," he replied as she turned around, still holding his hand so that it wrapped around him.

"That's a fair thought to lie between fellows' legs," she muttered, playing with his fingers and he frowned down at her.

"What is, my lady?"

"Nothing," she shrugged, still fiddling with his hand.

"You are merry, my lady?" he hoped.

"Who, I?" Hamletta suddenly shouted, spinning around to face him, still holding his hand.

"Aye, my lady," he chuckled at her wide-eyed expression before she grabbed his other hand and pulled him toward the center of the group to dance around.

"O God, your only jig-maker!" she grinned, hearing her mother start to laugh as they still danced around in a circle. "What should a captain do but be merry? For, look you…" She stopped and gestured to her mother, "how cheerfully my mother looks, and my _father_ died within these two hours."

"Nay," Ophelio frowned as she took his hands again and pulled him back to the railing. "'Tis twice two months, my lady?"

"So long?" Hamletta frowned, backing up against the rail to pull Ophelio toward her and throw her arms around his neck, his hands landing on the railing on either side of her. "Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables. O heavens! Die two months ago, and not forgotten yet?"

She took his hands again and spun them around so that she could spin around, crossing his arms around her to lean back against him. "Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year. But by'r lady, he must build churches, then, or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is…" She leaned from side to side, Ophelio's arms still around her as she continued, "'For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot.'"

Just then the musicians played and out climbed a King and Queen, arm in arm from a hatch and in the center of the group. They made show of an argument before they sat on the deck and the king leaned on the queen's shoulder. She gently laid him down and headed toward Hamletta and Ophelio to act as though she was speaking to them. Meanwhile, behind her, another player, dressed in black, examined the sleeping king, taking his crown and pouring something into his ear.

Both Horatio and Hamletta looked to Claudius, Hamletta only for a split second, but Horatio noticed clearly that Claudius was getting fidgety. The poisoner ran back down the hatch as the queen turned back to find the king dead. She ran toward him, mourning him just as the poisoner returned and acted as if he mourned him as well. The dead king was carried away, leaving the murderer with the queen alone. He wooed her, and she protested for a time but eventually gave in to him and they headed back down the hatch as the group around them clapped.

"What means this, my lady?" Ophelio frowned in wonder, looking down at her as he still held her and she looked up at him, leaning her head on his shoulder.

"Marry, this is miching mallecho, it means _mischief_," Hamletta enunciated every 'M' before looking back to the deck as another player came up the hatch.

"Belike the show imports the argument of the play," Ophelio guessed, unable to keep himself from leaning his cheek upon her head as the Prologue approached the center.

"We shall know by this fellow, the players cannot keep counsel, they'll tell all," Hamletta announced, waving her hand at the Prologue.

"Will he tell us what this show meant?" Ophelio wondered.

"Aye," Hamletta nodded, turning in his arms and setting her arms on his shoulders to play with his hair. "Or any who that you'll show him. Be not you ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means."

"You are naught," Ophelio chuckled, turning her back to the position they'd been standing in before. "You are naught. I'll mark the play."

"For us, and for our tragedy," the Prologue began. "Here stooping to your clemency, we beg you hearing patiently."

"Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?" Hamletta frowned, lifting one of Ophelio's hands as he set his chin on her shoulder and she fiddled with his hand.

"'Tis brief, my lady," he replied.

"As woman's love," she muttered, making him frown at her but she didn't look away as two more players came out of the hatch and toward the center dressed as a king and queen.

The king began, "Full thirty time hath Phoebus' cart gone round Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground, and thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheen about the world have times twelve thirties been, since love out hearts and Hymen did our hands unite commutual in most sacred bands."

"So many journeys may the sun and moon make us again count o'er ere love be done!" the queen agreed, holding the king's hands and stepping close to him to stroke his cheek. But, woe is me, you are so sick of late, so far from cheer and from your former state, that I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust, discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must. For women's fear and love holds quantity, in neither aught, or in extremity. Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know, and as my love is sized, my fear is so. Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear…where little fears grow great, great love grows there."

"'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too," the king replied, stepping back from her and slowly letting go of her hands. "My operant powers their functions leave to do, and thou shalt live in this fair world behind, honored beloved, and haply one as kind for husband shalt thou—"

"O, confound the rest!" the queen cut in, sharply. "Such love must needs be treason in my breast. In second husband let me be accurst! None wed the second but who killed the first."

"Wormwood," Hamletta whispered loudly. "Wormwood."

"The instances that second marriage move are base respects of thrift, but none of love," the queen continued as Horatio watched Claudius intently, seeing him fidget slightly again. "A second time I kill my husband dead, when second husband kisses me in bed."

"I do believe you think what now you speak, but what we determine oft we break," the king observed, holding his hand to her and she took it to let him pull her toward him, wrapping his arms around her and she set her head on his chest. "Purpose is but the slave to memory, of violent birth, but poor validity, which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree, but fall, unshaken, when they mellow be. Most necessary 'tis that we forget to pay ourselves in passion we propose, the passion ending, doth the purpose lose. The violence of either grief or joy their own enactures with themselves destroy, where joy most revels, grief doth most lament, grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident."

He leaned out to look down at the queen.

"This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange that even our loves should with our fortunes change, for 'tis a question left us yet to prove, whether love lead fortune, of else fortune love. The great man down, you mark his favorite flies, the poor advanced makes friends of enemies. And hitherto doth love on fortune tend, for who not needs shall never lack a friend, and who in want a hollow friend doth try, directly seasons him his enemy. But, orderly to end where I begun, our wills and fates do so contrary run that our devise still are overthrown, our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own. So think thou wilt no second husband wed, but die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead."

"Nor earth to me give food, now heaven light!" the queen sobbed. "Sport and repose lock from me day and night! To desperation turn my trust and hope! An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope! Each opposite that blanks the face of joy meet what I would have well and it destroy! Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife, if, once a widow, ever I be wife!"

"If she should break it now…" Hamletta trailed off, shaking her head.

"'Tis deeply sworn," the king nodded. "Sweet, leave me here awhile." He let go of the queen and sat on the deck. "My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile the tedious day with sleep."

"Sleep rock thy brain," the murmured, stroking her king's head. "And never come mischance between us twain!"

She strolled off and down the hatch as Hamletta leaned over as the waist to look to Gertrude.

"Madam!" she called. "How like you this play?"

"The lady protests too much, methinks," Gertrude admitted.

"O, but she'll keep her word," Hamletta replied, then noticed Claudius turn to Polonius.

"Have you heard the argument?" he asked his first mate. "Is there no offence in 't?"

"No, no, they do but jest!" Hamletta called, lightheartedly, catching everyone's attention as she gripped Ophelio's hands a little tighter. "Poison in jest. No offence i' the world."

"What do you call the play?" Claudius asked, cautiously.

"The Mouse Trap," Hamletta replied, watching him intently. Marry how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna. Gonzago is the duke's name, his wife, Baptista. You shall see anon, 'tis a knavish peeve of work, but what o' that?" She shrugged with a shake of her head before smirking, "Your majesty and we that have _free_ souls, it touches us not. Let the galled jade wince, our the withers are unwrung."

She noticed another player come up from the hatch and waved with a hand that everyone pay attention and look to him, explaining, "This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king."

"You are as good as a chorus, my lady," Ophelio smiled down at her and she looked up at him again.

"I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying," she smirked, amking him stare at her with wide eyes.

"You are keen, my lady," he breathed as she turned back to the scene, still in his arms. "You are keen."

"It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge," she smirked, but stiffened when he lowered his face next to her ear.

"Still better," he whispered. "And worse."

Hamletta swallowed before muttering, "So you must take your wives."

She watched Lucianus circle the king sitting on the deck and hissed, "Begin murderer!"

He looked to her and she growled, rolling her eyes.

"Pox! Leave thy damnable faces, and begin!" she hissed, waving him on and he looked away. "Come! 'The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge'!"

"Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing," Lucianus hissed as well, now staring at the king. Horatio looked to Claudius again to watch him fidget even more, catching Gertrude's attention but when she moved to question him he only shook his head. "Confederate season, else no creature seeing! Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected, with Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected! Thy natural magic and dire property, on wholesome life usurp _immediately_!"

He moved as if pouring something into the king's ear and Hamletta threw Ophelio's arms from around her as she stepped onto the makeshift stage, the players looking to her in frustration as she shouted to the Pirate king and queen.

"He poisons him i' the garden for's estate!" she explains, seeing Claudius feeling _very_ uncomfortable. "His name's Gonzago, the story is extant, and writ in choice Italian. You shall see anon how the _murderer_ gets the love of Gonzago's _wife_."

Claudius shot up from his chair, glaring at Hamletta and Gertrude shot to her feet next to him as Ophelio stepped up behind Hamletta.

"The king rises," he stated.

"What, frighted with false fire?" she smirked, crossing her arms over her chest as Claudius started toward her, slowly.

"How fares my lord?" Gertrude called after him, attempted to follow him, but Polonius caught her arm.

"Give o'er the play," he called.

Claudius stepped directly in front of her Hamletta, his eyes burning in anger as she kept her cool demeanor. Ophelio stepped a little closer behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder at seeing the murderous look in the Pirate King's eyes. Just by the look in her eyes and the smirk she still wore, Claudius was sure of what she knew. He turned and held his hand out to one of the men.

"Give me some light," he snapped, and the man handed him a torch before he headed toward the railing. "Away!"

"Lights!" everyone called, as they hurried after the king and queen, the players hurrying back down the hatch they'd used as an entrance and exit.

Hamletta smirked on at the exiting people as Ophelio stepped next to her, smoothing his hand down her arm and catching her attention. Her smirk softened as she lowered her hands and slipped it into one of his, squeezing it gently and nodding her permission for him to leave. The thing she knew he was waiting for. He gave a reluctant nod and headed toward the railing after the rest of the crowd as Horatio stepped up next o her, watching them as well.

"Why, let the stricken deer go weep," she sighed. "The hart un galled play. For some must watch, while some must sleep. So runs the world away. Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers – if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me – with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?"

"Half a share," Horatio nodded.

"A _whole_ one, I," she argued, throwing an arm around his neck. "For dost thou know, O Damon dear, this realm dismantled was of Jove himself, and now reigns here a very, very…pajock."

"You might have rhymed," he noticed through a smirk and she smirked back before throwing her other arm around him and hugging him fiercely.

"O good Horatio!" she grinned, spinning them around before she pulled away and gripped his shoulders. "I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pound! Didst perceive?"

"Very well, my lady," Horatio smiled back.

"_Upon_ the talk of the poisoning!" Hamletta recalled, shoving away to run a hand through her her hair, a grin still plastered to her face.

"I did very well note him," Horatio nodded.

"Ah, ha!" she laughed, spinning around again and turning to a player that was peeking out of the hatch to see what was going on.

"Come, some music!" she called to him. "Come, the recorders!"

She turned back to Horatio when the player ran back down to obey her.

"For if the king like not the comedy, why then belike, he likes it not, perdy. Come, some music!"

She sighed in exasperation to Horatio when she noticed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern climbing over the railing again.

"Good my lady," Guildenstern panted, before stepping toward her. "Vouchsafe me a word with you."

"Sir," she chirped, strolling toward him and setting her hands on his shoulders to whisper, "A whole _history_."

She patted his cheek before spinning on her heel and heading back to Horatio.

"The king, lady—"

"Aye, sir, what of him?" Hamletta cut in through a sigh as she leaned an elbow on Horatio's shoulder and he allowed it.

"Is in his retirement marvellous distempered," Guildenstern continued.

"With drink, Sir?" Hamletta guessed through a huge, knowing nod.

"No, my lady, rather with choler," Guildenstern corrected.

"Your wisdom should show itself more _richer_ to signify this to his doctor, for, for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far more choler," Hamletta replied before scrunching her face in disgust and shaking her head.

"Good my lady, put your discourse into some frame and start not so _wildly_ from my affair," Guildenstern snapped.

Hamletta sighed, rolling her eyes and head before gripping Horatio's collar with the hand that had been dangling over his shoulder to pull him toward one of the chairs. She sat him down before sitting on his knee then shifting to sit across his lap, her knees over one arm of the chair and her back being supported by the other, her arms around his neck.

"I am tame, sir," she sighed again, turning to play with a curl of Horatio's hair. "Pronounce."

"The queen," Guildenstern began, stepping closer to them, along with Rosencrantz. "Your mother, in most great affliction of spirit hath sent me to you."

"You are welcome," Hamletta grinned to him before shooting her gaze back to playing with Horatio's hair as he frowned at her, comically.

"Nay, good my lady, this courtesy is not of the right breed," Guildenstern replied. "If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother's commandment. If not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business."

"Um…Sir, I cannot," Hamletta frowned to him, kicking her feet a bit and making Guildenstern frown.

"What, my lady?" he wondered.

"Make you a wholesome answer," Hamletta replied through nodding then placed a hand next to her mouth to whisper loudly, "My wit's diseased." She lowered her hand. "But, Sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command…or, rather, as you say, my mother. Therefore no more, but to the matter…my mother, you say—"

"Then thus she says," Rosencrantz cut in. "You behavior hath struck her into amazement and admiration."

"O _wonderful_ daughter, that can so astonish a mother!" Hamletta laughed, stretching out across Horatio's lap then frowned, "But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration?" She sat up and nodded a hand to her friends. "Impart."

"She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you go to bed," Rosencrantz replied.

"We shall obey, were she ten times our mother," Hamletta nodded, turning back to playing with Horatio's curls as he frowned at her with a smirk, but still said nothing. After a moment, she realized Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were still there and turned to them with a frown asking, "Have you any further trade with us?"

"My lady," Rosencrantz called, stepping close enough to take one of Hamletta's hands and kneel in front of her. "You once did love me."

Hamletta sighed, shifting to stand, taking her blonde friend with her and she placed her hands on her shoulders.

"So I do still," she sighed before lifting her hands from her shoulders and showing off her fingers. "By these pickers and stealers."

She gripped Rosencrantz around her waist and tickled her, to which the blonde struggled.

"Good my lady, what is your cause of distemper?" Rosencrantz snapped, shoving Hamletta's hands away but she remained in front of her. "You do, surely, bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend."

"Lady," Hamletta hummed, taking her hands and lifting them above her head as if to set a crown atop it, saying, "I lack advancement."

Rosencrantz frowned asking, "How can _that_ be, when you have the voice of the king himself for your succession of the _Denmark_?"

"Aye, but lady," Hamletta scoffed, placing her hands on the blonde's shoulder. "'While the grass grows'…" She frowned as she trailed off, looking around in thought before looking back to Rosencrantz and continuing, "The proverb is something musty."

She glanced to the hatch to see the player climbing out of the hatch with a pair of recorders and she grinned, hurrying toward him.

"O, the recorders! Let me see one!"

She grabbed them both and tossed one to Horatio who was now slung over the chair, one knee hanging over the arm of the chair as he leaned on the other. He caught the thing mid-air and began playing, along with Hamletta as she skipped back toward him, around the chair and then back to Guildenstern and Rosencrantz.

"To withdraw with you," she began, waving the recorder in front of each of their faces before pulling it back and twirling it between her fingers, questioning, "Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me to a toil?"

"O, my lady," Guildenstern began, catching her attention. "If my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly."

Hamletta frowned at him, stopping in her twirling of the recorder and admitting, "I do not well understand that." She pointed the recorder, mouthpiece first at Guildenstern and asked, "Will you play upon this pipe?"

"My lady, I cannot," Guildenstern replied, frowning at her.

"I pray you," Hamletta insisted.

"Believe me, I cannot," he argued.

"I do _beseech_ you," she grinned, nearly shoving the thing into his face.

"I know no touch of it, my lady," he nearly snapped, slapping the thing away.

"'Tis as easy as lying," she frowned in wonder at him, pointing around the recorder as she explained, "Govern these ventages with your lingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth and it will discourse most eloquent music."

She moved it around him and he only stared at her blankly before she said, "Look you, these are the stops."

"But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony, I have not the skill," Guildenstern replied and Hamletta frowned with a slight pout, pulling the recorder down.

"Why, look you now, how _unworthy_ a thing you make of me," she said, making Guildenstern frown, but it soon disappeared when she continued, "You would play upon _me_. You would seen to know _my_ stops. You would pluck out the heart of _my_ mystery. You would sound _me_ from my lowest note to the top of my compass, and there is much music…_excellent_ voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak?"

Her look suddenly darkened as she shoved the recorder sideways against Guildenstern's throat, her other hand clamping around Rosencrantz's neck as she shoved them toward the railing and against it. Horatio stood from the chair but didn't advance, somehow knowing she was in some sort of control.

"'Sblood!" she ground out just as they slammed against the wood. "Do you think I am easier played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you can_not_ play upon me!"

She shoved way from them, letting them cough and gasp for breath and noticed Polonius struggling to climb up the railing next to them.

"God bless you, Sir!" she grinned, bowing low before heading back to Horatio who sat back down in the chair and Hamletta skipped toward the other chair and sat as well.

"My lady," Polonius panted from his trial over the railing. "The queen would speak with you, and presently."

Hamletta stared at him blankly for a moment making him frown as he finally recovered his breath. She pointed up to the sky and asked, "Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?"

Polonius sighed and looked up at the sky replying, "By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed."

"Methinks it is like a weasel," Hamletta argued, making him sigh and roll his eyes as he still stared at the cloud.

"It is backed like a weasel," he agreed.

"Or like a _whale_?" she corrected.

"Very like a whale!" Polonius snapped, turning an angry glare to her, making her giggle and play a loud, piercing note on the recorder before standing.

"Then I will come to my mother by and by," she nodded, then drew her sword to point it at Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, growling, "They fool me to the top of my bent."

She looked back to Polonius, sheathing her sword again and repeated, "I will come by and by."

"I will say so," Polonius replied.

"By and by is easily said!" she snapped, irritably as he headed toward the railing to climb down again. She glanced around at the others, twirling her recorder in her fingers before she called, "Leave me, friends."

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern glanced to each other before making their own way off the ship and Horatio looked to her in worry but she only shook her head and he nodded in understanding, leaving her as she'd asked. She sighed as she fell back into the chair she'd been standing in front of and twirled her recorder with a devilish smirk.

"'Tis now the very witching time of night, when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world," she murmured. "Now could I drink hot blood, and do such _bitter_ business as the day would quake to look on. Soft…"

Her smirk dropped as she murmured, "Now to my mother."

She stopped twirling the recorder again and sighed in exhaustion.

"O heart, lose not thy nature, let not ever the soul of Nero enter this firm bosom."

She gripped the pipe in a death grip.

"Let me be cruel, not unnatural. I will speak _daggers_ to her, but use _none_. My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites, how in my words soever she be shent, to give them seals never, my soul, consent!"

Hamletta tossed the pipe away and ran to the railing to climb down and head toward the _Denmark_.


	8. One Attempt, One Success

_**Chapter 8: **__**One Attempt, One Success**_

"I like her _not_, nor stands it safe with us to let her madness range," Claudius growled as he paced the width of his cabin doors, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern standing on either side of him on the main deck of the _Denmark_. He stopped and looked to the young people each and nodded, "Therefore prepare you, I your commission will forthwith dispatch, and she to England shall along with you. The terms of our estate may not endure hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow out of her lunacies."

"We will ourselves provide," Guildenstern nodded, stepping closer to him as did Rosencrantz on the other side. "Most holy and religious fear it is to keep those many bodies safe that live and feed upon you majesty."

"The single and peculiar life is bound, with all the strength and armor of the mind, to keep itself from noyance," Rosencrantz sighed, leaning her elbow casually on Claudius' shoulder and he looked to her with an arched brow but said nothing as Guildenstern looked on, horrified at her boldness. "But much more that spirit upon whose weal depend and rest the lives of many."

She looked to Claudius and set a hand on his chest, still leaning on his shoulder.

"The cease of majesty dies not alone, but, like a gulf, doth draw what's near it with it. It is a massy wheel, fixed on the summit of the highest mount, to whose huge spokes ten _thousand_ lesser things are mortised and adjoined, which, when it falls, each small annexment, petty consequence, attends the boisterous ruin."

She flipped some blonde hair from her face and stepped in front of Claudius to slip her arms around his neck and rest her head on his chest as he only stood still and Guildenstern swallowed, noticing her flush cheeks and glazed look. She was drunk.

"Never alone did the king sigh, but with a general groan," she sighed and Claudius finally gripped her hands to push her away toward Guildenstern who caught her as she laughed, hysterically.

"Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage," Claudius advised. "For we will fetters put upon this fear, which now goes too free-footed."

"We will haste us," Guildenstern nodded nervously, pulling Rosencrantz away toward the railing to disembark, just as Polonius scrambled over the railing and headed toward Claudius.

"My lord," he panted. "She's going to her mother's closet. Behind the arras I'll convey myself, to hear the process, and warrant she'll tax her home, and, as you said, and wisely was it said, 'tis meet that some more audience than a mother, since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear the speech, of vantage."

Claudius turned his head slightly to roll his eyes at the old man before nodding to him and he continued, "Fare you well, my liege. I'll call upon you ere you go to bed, and tell you what I know."

"Thanks, dear my lord," Claudius replied, bowing his head to rub his eyes as Polonius hurried toward the captain's cabin.

Claudius sighed as he began strolling the ship, headed toward the bow. He felt his stomach turn and frowned in wonder before he hurried toward the railing of the bow and hurled into the water below. Once finished he wiped his mouth on his sleeve and leaned heavily on the railing with a sigh and a sneer of disgust.

"Oh, my offense is _rank_," he growled. "It smells to heaven. It hath the primal eldest curse upon't…a brother's murder."

He sighed again and turned to lean back on the railing in exhaustion.

"Pray," he rasped. "Can I not, though inclination be as sharp as will, my stronger guilt defeats my strong intent, and, like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin, and both neglect."

He lifted his right hand and examined it in the moonlight.

"What if this cursed hand were thicker than itself with brother's blood, is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens to wash it white as snow?"

He stared at it then looked past his hand to the moon framed perfectly between two fingers before sighing and letting his hand fall to stare at the huge, glowing orb above.

"Whereto serves mercy but to confront the visage of offence? And what's in prayer but this two-fold force to be forestalled ere we come to fall or pardon'd being down? 'Forgive me my foul murder?'…"

He scoffed at himself.

"That cannot be, since I am still possess'd of those effects for which I did the murder, my crown men own ambition and…my queen. May one be pardon'd and retain the offence?"

He turned and leaned forward on the railing to stare into the moonlit water.

"In the corrupted currents of this world offence's gilded hand may shove by justice, and oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself buys out the law," he sighed. "But 'tis not so above, there is no shuffling, there the action lies in his true nature, and we ourselves compell'd, even to the teeth and forehead of faults, to give in evidence.

"What then?" he frowned. "What rests? Try what repentance can: what can it not? Yet what can it when one can not repent?"

He shoved off the railing and spun toward the center of the small deck and held his fists to his forehead, growling, "O, wretched state! O bosom black as death! O limed soul, that, struggling to be free, art more engaged!"

Claudius threw his arms up to the sky, nearly sobbing, "Help, angels! Make assay!"

He dropped to his knees, bowing his head and lowering his hands, muttering, "Bow, stubborn knees, and, heart with strings of steel, be soft as sinews of the newborn babe." He clasped his hands together, and before he began praying he whispered, "All may be well."

As he prayed, he didn't notice or hear Hamletta climbing up over the starboard railing of the main deck behind him. She was about to cross into the captain's cabin to see her mother when she looked to the bow and stopped dead, spotting Claudius praying. She slowly, silently moved across the deck to hide behind the pole of the main mast then knelt down, keeping her eyes on her uncle as she slipped her fingers into the fold of her boot. When she stood again, the handle of a dagger was between her first and middle fingers.

_Now might I do it pat_, she thought as she slowly took steps closer toward him. _Now he is praying…_

She spun the dagger in her hand and lifted it high above her head to strike.

_And now I'll do it!_

She stopped dead at a sudden thought as she remained frozen behind him.

_And so he goes to heaven_, she reasoned, lowering the dagger to her side, her breathing silent. _And so I am revenged. That would be scanned…a villain kills my father, and for __that__, I, his sole daughter, do this same villain send to heaven. O, this is hire in __salary__, not revenge._

Hamletta quickly looked around before silently backing away from him and back into her hiding place as silently as she had stepped _toward_ him. Still watching him she concealed her weapon again, glaring at him.

"He took my father grossly, full of bread," she whispered to herself. "With all his crimes _broad blown_, as flush as May, and how his audit stands who knows save heaven? But in our circumstance and course of thought, 'tis heavy with him, and am I then revenged, to take him in the purging of his soul, when he is _fit_ and _seasoned_ for his passage?"

She smirked, shaking her head as she smirked, "No. Up sword, and know thou a more horrid hent…when he is _drunk_ asleep, or in his _rage_, or in the incestuous _pleasure_ of his bed. At _gaming_, _swearing_ or about some act that has no relish of salvation in't…then _trip_ him, that his heels may _kick_ at heaven, and that his soul may be as _damned_ and _black_ as hell, whereto it goes."

She glanced down in thought, murmuring, "My mother stays," before glaring back up at her uncle and growling, "This physic but _prolongs_ thy sickly days."

Hamletta took in a deep silent breath before silently moving across the deck again to head toward one of the hatches to hide until he was finished, her head peeking up enough to watch him.

Claudius stood and sighed in relief before smirking to himself, "My words fly up, my thoughts remain below."

He turned and strolled toward the starboard railing to climb over it, chuckling, "Words without thoughts never to heaven go."

Hamletta quickly ducked into the hatch as he passed, clenching her fists in regret that she hadn't struck when the opportunity had presented itself.

"To my mother," she whispered, reminding herself.

* * *

_Gertrude's Closet..._

Gertrude didn't look at Polonius as he paced about the room. She only faced her vanity, brushing her hair as he spoke.

"She will come straight," he advised. "Look you lay home with her. Tell her, her pranks have been too broad to bear with, and that your grace hath screened and stood between much heat and her. I'll sconce me even here." He hurried to the dressing screen in a corner as Gertrude rolled her eyes at him, waving him off. "Pray you, be _round_ with her."

"I'll warrant you, fear me not," she ground out in irritation before hearing the knob jiggle on her door, then she whispered, "Withdraw, I hear her coming!"

She turned back to her brushing as Polonius quickly hid behind the screen and the door flew open to reveal Hamletta strolling in.

"Mother, mother, mother!" she grinned, marching in time with the words toward the window seat to the right of the room. She flopped down on it, laying back so that her legs were set on the armrest next to it as she asked, loudly, "Now, mother, what's the matter?"

"Hamletta," Gertrude began, warningly as she set down her brush on her vanity. "Thou hast thy father much offended."

"Mother," Hamletta called in the same tone, rolling onto her stomach to hang half of her body off the edge of the seat. "You have my father much offended."

"Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue," Gertrude snapped, not looking at her daughter.

"Go, go, you _question_ with a _wicked_ tongue," Hamletta retorted, watching her mother's temper start to flare in amusement.

"Why, how now, Hamletta!" Gertrude snapped, shooting to her feet and turning to march toward the girl and stare down at her as she rolled back onto her back.

"What's the matter now?" Hamletta sighed through a pout and Gertrude set her jaw as she stopped next to her, then took a deep breath and sat next to Hamletta's feet, lifting a hand to settle it on her daughter's shin.

"Have you forgot me?" she nearly whispered.

Hamletta said nothing for a moment before sitting up and pulling her feet away from her mother's touch and stood to pace the room.

"No, by the rood, not so," she assured her before stopping in the middle of the room to turn to her and bow deeply, continuing, "You are the _queen_…" She stood tall and looked to the ceiling in thought before resuming, "Your _husband's brother's_ wife. And – would it were not so…" She stepped in front of Gertrude and leaned close enough to bore her gaze into her eyes, saying, "You are _my mother_."

"Nay, then," Gertrude breathed, seeing the uncontrolled fire in her daughter's eyes which made her swallow before she stood and stepped toward the door's of the cabin. "I'll set those to you that can speak."

Hamletta hurried ahead of her mother and slammed the door's shut before she could head out, making Gertrude gasp as Hamletta took her wrist, marching her back to the seat, growling, "Come, come and sit you down!"

The girl nearly flung her mother back onto the seat and loomed over her with a scolding finger.

"You shall not budge," Hamletta growled. "You go not till _I_ set you up a glass where you may see the inmost part of you."

"What wilt thou do?" Gertrude shuddered, curling up on the seat and glancing toward her dressing screen. "Thou wilt not murder me?"

Hamletta gave a slight frown when she caught her mother's glance, but had no time to question her when Gertrude began crying, "Help! Help, ho!"

"What, ho! Help, help, help!" Polonius cried from behind his screen, but did not reveal himself.

Hamletta spun around, pulling her dagger from her boot again and shouting, "How now! A rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!"

She threw the dagger at a shadow passing behind the thin screen and heard a cry of agony before Polonius grumbled, "O, I am slain!"

Gertrude jumped with a gasp when his body hit the floor with a thud and Hamletta's eyes grew wide. She hadn't thought her throw was very accurate.

"O me," Gertrude breathed, not moving from her spot. "What hast thou done?"

"Nay, I know not," Hamletta admitted, looking to the vanity before marching toward it and lifting the candle in its stand to cast light on the body of Polonius, hoping, "Is it the king?"

Disappointment flooded her as she discovered Polonius, but she said nothing more.

"O, what rash and bloody deed is this?" Gertrude breathed as she finally stood and hurried to her daughter's side.

"A _bloody_ deed," Hamletta confirmed, looking to Gertrude and snapping, "Almost as _bad_, good mother, as _kill a king_ and marry with his brother!"

Gertrude's gaze snapped to Hamletta's in disbelief as she echoed, "As kill a king?"

"Ay, lady," Hamletta nodded, looking back to Polonius' body as Gertrude backed away, slowly. "'Twas my word."

She sighed and knelt down to pull her dagger from his chest and wipe it on his trouser leg before sheathing it in her boot, then stood tall, muttering, "Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell. I took thee for thy better, take thy fortune. Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger."

Hamletta turned to set the candle on the vanity again, concealing her dagger in her boot then turning to Gertrude as she breathed fiercely in panic, wringing her hands as her gaze darted about.

"Leave wringing of your hands!" Hamletta snapped, gripping her mother's wrist again to drag her toward the window seat and sit her down again. "Peace! Sit you down, and let me wring your heart!"

Hamletta loomed over Gertrude who stared up at her daughter in horror as she continued, "For so I shall, if it be made of penetrable stuff, if damned custom have not brass'd it so that it is proof and bulwark against _sense_!"

"What have I done, that thou _darest_ wag thy tongue in noise so rude against me?" Gertrude snapped, shooting to her feet to stand her ground but Hamletta only shoved her back into her seat, roughly.

"Such an act that _blurs_ the grace and blush of modesty," she growled, looming over Gertrude. "Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose from the fair forehead of an innocent love and sets a _blister_ there, makes marriage vows as false as dicers' oaths! O, such a deed as from the body of contraction plucks the very soul, and sweet religion makes a rhapsody of words. Heaven's face doth glow! Yea, this solidity and compound mass, with trustful visage, as against the doom, is thought sick at the act!"

"Ay me!" Gertrude snapped again and again shot to her feet to glare at her daughter. "What act, that _roars_ so loud, and _thunders_ in the index?"

Hamletta set her jaw again and glanced to vanity before gripping the back of her mother's neck to drag her toward it. She snatched something from the surface before clearing the rest of the things away with one sweep of her arm then slammed the thing she was holding onto its surface to point at it.

"Look here, upon this picture," she growled into her ear, then opened a drawer to pull out another frame and slammed it onto the surface as well, resuming, "And on _this_."

The first she had set down had been of Claudius, and the second of Hamletta's father. Gertrude tried to shove them away and escape but Hamletta held her by the back of her neck still, and kept the pictures on the vanity for her to see.

"The counterfeit presentment of _two_ brothers," Hamletta continued, turning first to the picture of her father and reporting in awe, "See, what a _grace_ was seated on this brow. Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself, an eye like Mars, to threaten and command, a station like the herald of Mercury new-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill…a combination and a form indeed, where every god did seem to set his seal, to give the world assurance of a man." She looked to Gertrude who was bowing her head lower and shuddering as Hamletta stated, "_This_ was your husband."

Gertrude nodded then gasped when Hamletta slammed the other picture frame onto the vanity again and she looked up at it.

"Look you now, what follows," Hamletta resumed, almost mockingly. "_Here_ is your husband. Like a mildewed ear, blasting his wholesome brother!"

Hamletta pulled Gertrude by the arm toward her to shake her slightly, questioning, "Have you eyes?"

She gestured from one picture to the other, shouting, "Could you on _this_ fair mountain leave to feed, and batten on _this_ moor?" She looked back at her mother who stared at her with frightened, wide eyes. "Ha! Have you eyes? You cannot call it love, for at _your_ age the hey-day in the blood is tame…it's humble, and waits upon the judgment, and what _judgment_ would step from this to this?"

Hamletta gripped her mother's wrist again and dragged her toward the window seat to shove her back into it and loom over her again.

"Sense, sure, you have, else could you not have motion, but sure, that sense is apoplex'd, for madness would not err, nor to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd but it reserved some _quality_ of choice, to serve in such a difference! What devil was't that thus hath cozened you at hoodman-blind? Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight, ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all, or but a sickly part of one true sense could not so mope!"

Hamletta looked on her mother a moment, seeing nothing but fear before throwing her hands in the air and turning to shout, "O shame! Where is thy blush?"

She turned on her mother again and ground out, "Rebellious hell, if thou canst mutine in a matron's bones, to flaming youth let virtue be as wax and melt in her own fire! Proclaim no shame when the compulsive ardour gives the charge, since frost itself as actively doth burn and reason panders will!"

"O Hamletta, speak no more," Gertrude pleaded, taking her daughter's arm as tears streamed down her face. "Thou turn's mine eyes into my very soul and there I see such _black_ and grained spots as will not leave their tinct."

"Nay!" Hamletta snapped, yanking her arm away from Gertrude's grip before kneeling at her feet as she still sat, and Hamletta mocked, "But to _live_ in the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, stewed in corruption, honeying and making love over the nasty sty—!"

"O, speak to me no more!" Gertrude nearly screamed. "These words, like daggers, enter mine ears! No more, sweet Hamletta!"

"A _murderer_!" Hamletta continued, standing again to look down at her mother. "And a villain! A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe of your precedent lord! A vice of kings! A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, that from a shelf the precious diadem stole, and put it in his pocket!"

"No more!" Gertrude shouted, shooting to her feet and attempted to shove Hamletta, but the girl caught her wrists and shoved back enough to keep them balanced.

"A king of shreds and patches—"!

Hamletta cut herself off as she grew pale, her eyes widening when she happened to look to the cabin door. There stood her ghost father. Gertrude stepped back, pulling away and was about to speak when she stopped herself, catching Hamletta's sudden change in mood.

"Save me," Hamletta breathed, holding her hands out him as she stepped toward the door, Gertrude watching in horror. "And hover o'er me with your wings, you heavenly guards!"

She knelt down in front of the ghost, her arms outstretched to him.

"What would you gracious figure?" she breathed, near tears.

"Alas," Gertrude breathed, sitting back down in the window seat before she fainted with fright. "He's mad!"

"Do you not come you tardy daughter to chide," Hamletta shuddered. "That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by the important acting of your dread command? O, say!"

"Do not forget," he warned, lifting a hand to place it on Hamletta's head as she lowered it and her hands to clasp them together. "This visitation is but to whet thy almost _blunted_ purpose."

He looked to the still terrified Gertrude as she stared at Hamletta.

"But, look, amazement on thy mother sits," he wheezed, lifting the hand from Hamletta's head and she frowned up at him before she looked to her mother as her ghost father continued, "O, step between her and her fighting soul. Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works. Speak to her, Hamletta!"

She scrambled toward Gertrude, still on her knees and she took the woman's hands in hers, asking, "How is it with you, lady?"

"Alas," she breathed, kneeling in front of her as Hamletta looked back to her ghost father, watching him as he walked toward Gertrude to stand next to her. How is't with you, that you do bend your eye on vacancy and with the incorporal air so hold discourse? Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep, and, as the sleeping soldiers in alarm, your bedded hair, like life in excrements, starts up, and stands on end."

Gertrude gripped Hamletta's arms as the girl only started up at her ghost father while he stood next to her mother who continued, "O gentle daughter, upon the heart and flame of thy distemper sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?"

"On him, on him!" Hamletta insisted, pointing toward the ghost and Gertrude looked up to the place she'd pointed but saw nothing. Her attention was directed back to Hamletta when she breathed, "Look you, how pale he glares. His form and cause conjoined, preaching stones, would make them capable."

The ghost of her father looked to her direction, making her gasp and shrink back onto her rear from kneeling, Gertrude frowning at her in confusion as she slipped from her grasp.

"Do not look upon me," Hamletta pleaded, slowly backpedaling away. "Lest with this piteous action you convert my stern effects, then what I have to do will want true color, tears…perchance blood!"

"To whom do you speak this?" Gertrude questioned, crawling toward her daughter who looked to her with wide eyes filled with disbelief then back to the ghost.

"Do you see nothing there?" Hamletta questioned, pointing to him and Gertrude looked to the direction she pointed then back at her daughter.

"Nothing at all," she confessed, taking her hands. "Yet all that is I see."

"Nor did you nothing hear?" Hamletta wondered, looking her mother in the eye.

"No, nothing but ourselves," Gertrude replied just before Hamletta shot to her feet when she noticed the ghost backing away and toward another wall to disappear.

"Why, look you there!" she breathed, staring on. "Look, how it steals away! My father, in his habit as he lived!" She ran toward him as he disappeared. "Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!"

She stopped just as he disappeared completely, staring at the wall as Gertrude still sat on the floor, confused.

"This the very coinage of your brain," she breathed, not looking at her daughter. "This bodiless creation ecstasy is very cunning in."

Hamletta slowly turned a glare toward her mother, grinding out, "Ecstasy?"

She marched toward Gertrude who looked up at her just as Hamletta gripped her arm and pulled her to her feet, taking one of her hands and pressing it against the side of her neck.

"My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, and makes as healthful music," Hamletta reported. "It is not madness, that I have uttered, bring me to the test, and I the matter will reword, which madness would gambol from."

She took her mother's hands and knelt to her knees in front of her and begged, "Mother, for love of grace, lay not that mattering unction to your soul, that not your trespass, but my madness speaks. It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, whilst rank corruption, mining all within, infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven, repent what's past, _avoid_ what is to come, and do not spread the compost on the weeds, to make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue, for in the fatness of these pursy times virtue itself of vice must pardon beg, yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good."

"O Hamletta," Gertrude sighed as the girl stood, still holding her hands. "Thou hast cleft my heart in twain."

"O, throw _away_ the worser part of it, and live the purer with the other half," Hamletta dismissed, shoving Gertrude's hands away to turn and walk away to run a hand down her face. She was tired, and she could see exhaustion in her mother's face as well as she turned back to her and set her hands on her shoulders, murmuring, "Good night."

She couldn't help but add, "But go not to mine uncle's bed, _assume_ a virtue, if you have it not. That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat, of habits devil, is angel yet in this, that to the use of actions fair and good he likewise gives a frock or livery, that aptly is put on. Refrain _tonight_, and that shall lend a kind of easiness to the _next_ abstinence, the next _more_ easy, for use almost can change the stamp of nature, and either the devil, or throw him out with wondrous potency."

Hamletta sighed, glancing to the direction of Polonius' body and remembering she had to get it out of her mother's closet.

"Once more, good night," she sighed, dropping her hands from her mother's shoulders and shuffling toward the body near the screen. "And when you are desirous to be blessed, I'll blessing beg of you. For _this_ same lord…" She stopped at his body and sighed again. "I do repent, but heaven hath pleased it so, to punish me with this and this with me, that I must be their scourge and minister. I will bestow him, and will answer well the death I gave him."

She paced back to her mother and took her hand to lead her toward her window seat, saying, "So again, good night."

Gertrude looked up at Hamletta in wonder as she stood over her, explaining, "I must be cruel, only to be kind. Thus bad begins and worse remains behind. One word more, good lady."

"What shall I do?" Gertrude sighed, tiredly as Hamletta sat next to her.

"Not this, by no means, that I bid you do," she replied, staring ahead as she set her elbows on her knees. "Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed, pinch wanton on your cheeks, call you his _mouse_, and let him, for a pair of reechy kisses, or padding in your neck with his damned fingers, make you to ravel all this matter out, that I essentially am not in madness, but mad in _craft_. 'Twere good youlet him know, for who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise, would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib, such dear concernings hide? Who would do so?"

She scoffed and shook her head, still not looking at Gertrude.

"No, in despite of sense and secrecy, unpeg the basket on the house's top. Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape, to try conclusions, in the basket creep, and break your own neck down."

"Be thou assured," Gertrude murmured, shifting closer to wrap her arm around Hamletta's shoulders. "If words be made of breath, and breath of life, I have no life to breathe what thou hast said to me."

Hamletta sat up with a sigh and leaned against Gertrude's shoulder as she still held her.

"I must to England, you know that?" Hamletta sighed again.

"Alack," Gertrude breathed, stroking her hair. "I had forgot. 'Tis so concluded on."

"There's letters sealed," Hamletta explained then scoffed, "and my two schoolfellows, whom I will trust as I will adders fanged. They bear the mandate, they must sweep my way, and marshal me to knavery." She scoffed again. "Let it work, for 'tis the sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petard and 't shall go hard but I will delve one yard below their mines, and _blow_ them at the moon. O, 'tis most sweet, when in one line two crafts directly meet."

Hamletta sighed again, lifting her head to stare at the body sitting across the room.

"This man shall set me packing," she sighed again before patting a hand on her mother's knee and kissing her cheek. She stood, groaning, "I'll lug the guts into the neighbor room. Mother, good night." She strolled to the other end of the room and leaned on the wall, staring at the body. "Indeed this counselor is not most still, most secret and most grave, who was in life a foolish prating knave. Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you."

She gripped Polonius' ankles and started pulling him toward the door, opening it and peeking out to make sure no one was around to see her dragging him away. She pulled the body out of the room and onto the deck, looking to her mother as she still sat on the window seat, and as she closed the doors she murmured, "Good night, mother."


	9. Catch Hamletta

_**Chapter **__**9: Catch Hamletta**_

Gertrude sat in her closet, staring ahead at the mirror of her vanity before sighing and shuddering with silent sobs as she thought of everything Hamletta had told her. She gasped when the door of the cabin opened and she jumped up to look presentable as Claudius entered with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern right behind him. Claudius frowned, heading toward Gertrude and placed his hands gently on her arms, stroking her in concern.

"There's matter in these sighs, these profound heaves," he guessed, seeing the state of her teary eyes and jerking sobs. He pulled her into his arms and held her as she stood rigidly but he only continued to hold her. "You must translate. 'Tis fit we understand them. Where is your daughter?"

Gertrude gently pushed him away and looked to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, requested, "Bestow this place on us a little while."

The two nodded, glancing to each other before stepping out of the cabin and shutting the doors behind them. Gertrude sighed, stepping away from Claudius as he frowned at her but slowly followed her to the window seat as she sat with a sigh.

"Ah, my good lord, what have I seen tonight!" she sighed, leaning her head in her hand and shaking it.

"What, Gertrude?" Claudius urged, kneeling in front of her to catch her eye. "How does Hamletta?"

"Mad as the sea and wind when both contend which is mightier," she sighed, lowering her hand and looking to Claudius with more tears in her eyes. "In her lawless fit, behind the arras hearing something stir, whips out her pistol, cries, 'A rat, a rat!' and, in this brainish apprehension, kills the unseen good man."

She lowered her face into her hands and began sobbing again as Claudius sighed and stood to sit with her on the window seat, his arms around her. She turned into him and sobbed into his chest as he still held her.

"O heavy deed," he sighed. "It had been so with us, had we been there. Her liberty is full of threats to all, to you yourself, to us, to _every one_. Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answered? It will be laid to us, whose providence should have kept short, restrained and out of haunt, this man young woman. But so much was out love, we would not understand what was most fit, but, like our owner of a foul disease, to keep it from divulging, let if feed even on the pirth of Life." He gently brought her face to his gaze as she sniffled from crying and asked, "Where is she gone?"

"To—" Gertrude choked on a sob, quickly wiping her face. "To draw apart the body he hath killed…o'er whom his very madness, like some ore among a mineral of metals base, shows itself pure, he weeps for what is done."

"O Gertrude, away!" Claudius grumbled, standing to pace the room. "The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch, but we will ship her hence, and this vile deed we must, with all our majesty and skill, both countenance and excuse." He turned to the door to throw it open and call, "Ho, Guildenstern!"

The two hurried in as Claudius paced again, Gertrude staring at him with wide eyes before he stepped back toward the two, placing a hand on each of their shoulders.

"Friends both, go join you with some further aid. Hamletta in her madness hath Polonius slain, and from her mother's closet hath she dragged him. Go seek her out, speak fair, and bring the body into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this."

The two nodded vigorously and hurried out to get to work as Claudius turned back to Gertrude to kneel in front of her, taking her hands in his as she stared at him.

"Come, Gertrude," he murmured. "We'll call up our wisest friends and let them know, both what we _mean_ to do, and what's untimely done." He stared up at her and wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his head in her lap. "O, come away! My soul is full of discord and dismay."

Gertrude stared down at him and swallowed before gently moving his hands from around her waist. He looked up at her with a frown as she stood and walked away.

* * *

_Cargo Bay of the __Denmark__..._

Hamletta grunted and growled as she shoved Polonius' body into a barrel in the cargo bay then slapped the lid onto the barrel and sighed tiredly before dusting her hands.

"Safely stowed," she sighed, wiping the sweat from her brow with her sleeve.

"Hamletta!" she heard from the hatch leading in and frowned to the opening. "Lady Hamletta!"

"What noise?" she called back. "Who calls Hamletta?" Suddenly realizing who it was she rolled her eyes, muttering, "O, here they come."

She quickly sat herself on the barrel she'd filled with Polonius and grinned when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hurried down the stairs to look at her.

"What have you done, my lady, with the dead body?" Rosencrantz panted, flipping her blonde hair from her gaze as Guildenstern caught his breath as well.

"Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin," Hamletta retorted, swinging her legs around either side of the barrel she sat on.

"Tell us where 'tis," Rosencrantz nearly demanded, stepping toward her. "That we may take it thence and bear it to the chapel."

Hamletta swung her head from side to side before wagging her finger at them and singing, "Do not believe it."

"Believe what?" Rosencrantz frowned in wonder.

"That I can keep _your_ counsel and _not_ mine own," Hamletta snarled, jumping off the barrel and storming toward them to bark in their faces, "Besides, to be demanded of a _sponge_! What replication should be made by the daughter of a king?"

"Take you me for a _sponge_, my lady?" Rosencrantz snapped, losing her patience.

"Ay, madame," Hamletta retorted, leaning an inch away from the blonde's face. "That soaks up the king's _countenance_, his _rewards_, his _authorities_. But such officers do the king _best_ service in the _end_." She moved to lean an inch from Guildenstern's face to resume, "He keeps them, like an _ape_, in the corner of his jaw…first _mouthed_, to be last _swallowed_." She leaned out to glance between them. "When he needs what you have gleaned, it is but _squeezing_ you, and , sponge, you shall be dry again."

"I understand you _not_, my lady," Rosencrantz sighed, sitting on the last steps of the stairs and rubbing her brow.

"I am glad of it," Hamletta grinned, sitting on top of the barrel again. "A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear."

"My lady," Rosencrantz snapped, standing again and growling, "You _must_ tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king!"

"The body is with the king," Hamletta replied, leaning deeply from side to side. "But the king is not with the body. The king is a thing…"

"A _thing_, my lady?" Guildenstern finally spoke up in disbelief.

"Of _nothing_," Hamletta laughed before jumping from the barrel and sighing, "Bring me to him."

She started up the stairs between Rosencrantz and Guildenstern then shot up the steps, shouting, "Hide fox, and all after!"

"My lady!"

* * *

_A hatch leading to the brig..._

"I have sent to seek her," Claudius told one of his attendants following him down the stairs to the brig and he stopped to speak to him. "And to find the body. How dangerous is it that this woman goes loose! Yet must not we put the strong law on her. She's loved of the distracted multitude, who like not in their judgment, but their eyes, and where 'tis so, the offender's scourge is weighed, but never the offence. To bear all smooth and even, this sudden sending her away must seem deliberate pause. Diseases desperate grown by desperate appliance are relieved, or not at all."

He continued down the stairs to meet Rosencrantz standing at the bottom of the stairs in the brig.

"How now! What hath befallen?"

"Where the dead body is bestowed, my lord, we cannot get from her," Rosencrantz sighed in exasperation.

"But where is she?" Claudius asked.

"Without, my lord, guarded, to know your pleasure," Rosencrantz smirked, bowing lowly at the waist.

"Bring her before us," Claudius ordered, waving for her to do so and she turned to face one of the cells.

"Ho, Guildenstern!" she called. "Bring my _lady_!"

Guildenstern appeared from one of the cells, holding Hamletta's arm as her hands were tied behind her back and she skipped next to him as he led her to stand before Claudius who glared at her.

"Now, Hamletta," Claudius began in a low voice. "Where's Polonius?"

Hamletta looked up in thought and frowned before replying, "At supper."

"At supper," Claudius retorted. "Where?"

"Not where he east," Hameltta explained, rocking back and forth on her feet then side to side and repeating the movements as she spoke. "But where he is _eaten_. A certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. You fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table. That's the end."

"Alas, alas," Claudius mocked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and cat of the fish that hath fed of that worm," Hamletta continued.

"What dost you mean by this?" Claudius sighed, impatiently.

"Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar," Hamletta shrugged.

"Where is Polonius!" Claudius boomed, gripping Hamletta's shoulders and shaking her as he shouted.

Hamletta took a moment to look up at the heaving Claudius and slowly smiled before giving a low chuckle. A moment later she threw her head back and laughed heartily as Claudius lowered his hands from her, everyone in the brig looked at each other warily. She soon stopped and looked to Claudius with a sly smirk.

"In heaven," she nodded to the ceiling, still smirking. "Send hither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him in the other place yourself. But indeed, if you find him not within this month, you shall _nose_ him as you go up the stairs into the cargo bay."

Claudius looked to his attendant and nodded, "Go seek him there."

"He will stay till ye come!" Hamletta called as the attendant left and Claudius glared at her.

"Hamletta," he sighed, placing his hands on her shoulders again to look her in the eye. "This deed, for thine especial safety – which we do tender, as we dearly grieve for that which thou hast done – must send thee hence with fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself, the bark is ready, and the wind at help, the associates tend, and every thing is bent for England."

"For England!" Hamletta called, throwing her head back to shout it at the top of her lungs before grinning back at Claudius.

"Aye, Hamletta," he nodded, calmly.

"Good," she nodded back, still grinning.

"So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes," Claudius smirked slightly.

_I see a cherub that sees them_, Hamletta thought, but instead ran in her place impatiently and called, "But, come! For England! Farewell, dear mother."

"Thy loving _father_, Hamletta," Claudius corrected.

"My _mother_," Hamletta retorted. "Father and mother is man and wife…man and wife is one flesh, and so, my _mother_."

She looked between Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who looked to Claudius nodded to Guildenstern. That was the signal to cut Hamletta's bonds and she swung her hands forward and back a few times before running past Claudius and up the stairs shouting, "Come! For England!"

Claudius sighed, lifting a hand to rub his eyes, before looking back at the two in front of him.

"Follow her at foot," he instructed. "Tempt her with speed abroad. Delay it not. I'll have her hence tonight. Away! For everything is sealed and done, that else leans on the affair. Pray you, make haste.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern both nodded before heading up the stairs and after Hamletta. Claudius watched them but remained in the brig to lean on one of the doors.

"And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught – as my great power thereof may give thee sense, since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red after the rapier, and thy free awe pays homage to us – thou mayst not coldly set out sovereign process, which imports at full, by letters congruing to the effect, the present death of Hamletta."

He lifted his fists to his head and growled, "Do it, England, for like the hectic in my blood he rages, and thou must cure me till I know 'tis done, howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er began."

* * *

**A/N:** reviews?


	10. The Madness of Ophelio

**A/N:** new chappie! enjoy!

* * *

_**Chapter 10: The Madness of Ophelio**_

"Go, sailor, from me. Greet the Pirate king," a man with amber eyes and black hair ordered another man as he stood on his ship, staring at the _Denmark_ floating across the ocean. "Tell him that, by his license, Fortinbras Craves the conveyance of a promised march over his ship. You know the rendezvous. If that his majesty would aught with us, we shall express out duty in his eyes, and let him know so."

"I will do it, my lord," the sailor nodded.

"Go, softly on," Fortinbras urged.

The sailor hurried toward the starboard side and lowered a long boat with himself in it. He rowed toward the _Denmark_ and upon reaching it, climbed up the rope ladder on the port side of the ship, meeting Hamletta, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as they were about to climb into a long boat prepared for them to head toward a third ship floating several yards away.

"Good sir," Hamletta stopped him as he climbed over the railing, nodding toward the ship he'd come from, asking, "Whose powers are these?"

"They are of the _Norway_, sir," the sailor replied as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern frowned at her.

"How purposed, Sir, I pray you?" Hamletta asked.

"Against some part of the _Poland_," he replied.

"Who commands them, Sir?" she wondered.

"The nephews to the old captain of the _Norway_, Fortinbras," he answered.

"Goes it against the main of the _Portland_, sir, or for some frontier?"

"Truly to speak, and with no addition, we go to gain a little ship that hatch in it no profit but the name. To pay five ducats…_five_…I would not sail it, not will it yield to the _Norway_ or the _Pole_ a ranker rate, should it be sold in fee."

"Why, then the _Polack_ never will defend it," Hamletta guessed.

"Yes, it is already garrisoned," the sailor replied.

"Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats will not debate the question of _this_ straw," Hamletta smirked. "This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace, that inward breaks, and show no cause without why the man dies. I humbly thank you, Sir."

"God be with you, Madame," the sailor nodded before heading deeper onto the ship and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern began heading down the ladder as well.

When Hamletta didn't move she frowned at the other woman and asked, "Wilt please you go, my lady?"

Hamletta looked to the blonde and nodded, waving her on, "I'll be with you straight go a little before."

Rosencrantz frowned at her skeptically but started down the ladder herself as Hamletta looked over the now deserted deck and sighed, leaning back on the railing.

"How all occasions do inform against me, and spur my dull revenge!" she ground out, balling her hands into fists as she leaned forward on the railing. "What is a man, if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed? – A beast, no more. Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, looking before and after, gave us not that capability and god-like reason to fust in us unused."

She slammed her fists on the railing in anger.

"Now, whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple of thinking too precisely on the event, a though which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom and ever three parts coward, I do not know why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do.' Sith I have cause and will and strength and means to do it. Examples gross as earth exhort me."

She looked up and waved her hand toward Fortinbras's ship as she leaned her elbows on the railing, sighing, "Witness this army of such mass and charge led by a delicate and tender pirates, whose spirit with divine ambition puffed makes mouths at the invisible event, exposing what is mortal and unsure to all that fortune, death and danger dare, even for an _egg-shell_. Rightly to be great is not to stir without great argument, but greatly to find quarrel in a straw when honor's at the stake. How stand _I_ then, that have a father killed, a mother stained, excitements of my reason and my blood, and let all sleep?"

She sighed again, bowing her head.

"While, to my _shame_, I see the imminent death of twenty thousand men, that, for a fantasy and trick of fame, go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, which is not tomb enough and continent to hide the slain?"

Hamletta stood tall and swung her legs over the railing to climb down the ladder to the long boat to take her from the _Denmark_. She hesitated and growled, "Oh, from this time forth, my thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!"

* * *

_On the Deck of the Elsinore..._

"I will not see him," Gertrude denied, shaking her head while she leaned on the railing of the starboard side of the ship as Horatio and another sailor stood with her around her.

"He is importunate, indeed distract," the sailor explained. "His mood will needs be pitied."

"What would he have?" Gertrude wondered, turning to face them.

"He speaks much of his father," the sailor replied. "Says he hears there's tricks in the world and hems, and beats his heart. Spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt , that carry but half sense. His speech is nothing, yet the unshaped use of it doth move the hearers to collections. They aim it, and botch the words up fit to their own thoughts, which, as his winks, and nods, and gestures yield them, indeed would make one think there might be thought, though nothing sure, yet much unhappily."

"'Twere good he were spoken with," Horatio urged. "For he may strew dangerous conjecture in ill-breeding minds."

Gertrude sighed and rubbed her eyes before nodding, "Let him come here."

Horatio nodded and left with the sailor down a hatch as Gertrude turned back to lean forward on the railing again with a sigh.

"To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is, each toy seems prologue to some great amiss. So full of artless jealousy is guilt. It spills itself in fearing to be split."

She spun back around when she heard footsteps behind her and saw Horatio leading Ophelio from one of the hatches and toward her. He looked thinner than usual and paler and he looked around as if blind.

"Where is the beauteous majesty of the _Denmark_?" he called in a raw voice.

"How now, Ophelio," she replied.

He lazily looked toward her, stepping away from Horatio to stand next to her at the railing and stared into the ocean with a blank stare and sang, lowly, "How should I your true love know from another one? By his cockle hat and staff, and his sandal shoon."

"Alas, sweet lord, what imports this song?" Gertrude wondered, hesitantly.

He looked up at her with that blank stare and suddenly gripped her wrist to pull her close, making her gasp as Horatio tried to hurry toward them. He stopped when he heard Ophelio speak.

"Say you?" he ground out. "Nay, pray you, mark."

He shoved Gertrude away and turned back to gazing at the sea as Gertrude rubbed the wrist he'd grabbed to ease the pain while he sang.

"He is dead and gone, lady," he sang, breathily. "He is dead and gone. At his head a grass-green turf, at his heels a stone."

"Nay, but…Ophelio—"

"Pray you, _mark_!" he shouted before looking away again as she swallowed and tried taking a step from him as he sang again.

"White his shroud as the mountains snow—"

He was cut off when the door to the captain's cabin opened and Claudius frowned as he stepped onto the deck, hearing the noise and Gertrude lifted an urgent hand toward him.

"Alas, look here, my lord," she called and he stepped closer, seeing Ophelio.

"Larded with sweet flowers," Ophelio sang. "Which bewept to the grave did go with true-lovers showers."

"How do you, handsome lord?" Claudius asked, protectively moving Gertrude behind him a bit as Ophelio turned his blank stare at him.

"Well, God 'ild you!" he murmured then stepped toward him and gripped his collar, urgently. Horatio moved to tear him away, but Claudius lifted a hand to still him. "They say the owl was a baker's daughter. Lord, we knew what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table!"

"Conceit upon his father," Claudius instructed and Ophelio shoved away from Claudius.

"Pray you, let's have no words of this," he requested, waving them all off and pacing the railing. "But when they ask you what it means, say you _this_…"

He trailed off before climbing onto the and holding himself up on it by a line as the three hurried toward him, thinking he would jump overboard but instead he sang to the sea.

"Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's day, all the morning betime, and I a maid at your window, to be your Valentine. Then up he rose, and donned his clothes, and dupped the chamber door, let in the maid, that out a maid never departed more!"

"Ophelio!" Claudius called, beckoning him to come down before he fell.

Ophelio jumped down and bowed, lowly replying, "Indeed, la, without an oath, I'll make an end on it!"

He began singing again, this time, moving dramatically to the words, "By Gis and by Saint Charity, alack, and fie for shame! Young men will do it, if they come to it, by cock, they are to blame. Quoth she, before you tumbled me, you promised me to wed. So would I have done, by yonder sun, and thou hast not come to my bed!"

"How long hath he been thus?" Claudius questioned Horatio and he was about to respond but Ophelio hurried back toward the Pirate king to grip his collar.

"I hope all will be well," he breathed. "We must be patient. But I cannot choose but weep, to thin they should lay him in the cold ground."

He shoved away from him again to lean back on the railing, breathing heavily with wide eyes staring at them all.

"My brother shall know of it!" he shouted before standing tall, the blank stare returning and he nodded, "And so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies. Good night, sweet ladies. Good night, good night!"

He ran toward a hatch and ran down the stairs and Claudius instructed Horatio, "Follow him close. Give him good watch, I pray."

Horatio nodded and hurried after Ophelio down the hatch as Claudius sighed, leaning on the railing next to Gertrude as she stepped closer to him.

"Oh, this is the poison of deep grief," he sighed as Gertrude merely stared at him. "It springs all from his father's death."

He looked to Gertrude as she looked into the sea for a moment before looking up at him and he smiled, lifting an arm to wrap it around her shoulders, hugging her close.

"Oh, Gertrude, Gertrude," he sighed, both looking back to the water. "When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions. First, his father slain, next your daughter gone, and she most _violent_ author of her own just remove. The people muddied, thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers, for good Polonius' death, and we have done but greenly, in hugger-mugger to inter him. Poor Ophelio, divided from himself and his judgment, _without_ the which we are pictures, or mere beasts. Last, and as much containing as all these, his brother is in secret come from France…feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds, and wants not buzzers to infect his ear with pestilent speeches of his father's death…wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd, will nothing stick our person to arraign in ear and ear."

Claudius set his cheek on top of Gertrude's head as she didn't move from his embrace but remained there, stiffly.

"Oh, my dear Gertrude," he sighed. "This, like to a murdering-piece, in many places gives me superfluous death."

They both jumped when they heard a man shouting and looked to the water below to see a longboat rowing toward them, making them both frown.

"Alack," Gertrude breathed, watching the boat come nearer. "What noise is this?"

"Where are my Switzers?" Claudius boomed, making her jump before he looked to a hatch, shouting, "Let them guard the ladder!"

Two men stood at the ladder with drawn swords as the lookout at the crow's nest waved down at him, catching his attention.

"What is it?" he called up.

"Save yourself, my lord!" the lookout called back from his nest. "The ocean, overpeering of his list, eats not the flats with more impetuous haste than young Laertes, in a riotous head, o'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord, and as the world were not but to begin, antiquity forgot, custom not known, the ratifiers and props of every word, they cry, 'Choose we! Laertes shall be king!' Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds! 'Laertes shall be king! Laertes king!'"

"How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!" Gertrude snapped then shouted to the men in the approaching boat. "Oh, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!"

"The doors are broke," Claudius warned, seeing Laertes and his men easily fought through the two men at the ladders, then some of the crew as Claudius ushered Gertrude toward the captain's cabin, ducking in with her.

"Where is this king?" he snarled, looking around the ship before looking to the men with him. "Sirs, stand you all within the boat."

"No!" they snapped. "Let us join you."

"I pray you, give me leave," Laertes insisted, making the men sigh.

"We will, we will," they nodded before they headed back over the railing.

"I thank you," he nodded, watching them. "Keep the ladder."

He turned back to search the ship, marching toward the captain's cabin and kicking down the door, facing Claudius as he drew his sword, Gertrude behind him.

"Oh, thou vile king," Laertes growled. "Give me my father!"

"Calmly, good Laertes," Gertrude tried, emerging from behind Claudius to grip Laertes arm that held his sword.

"That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard," Laertes growled. "Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow of my true mother!"

"What is the cause, Laertes, that thy rebellion looks so giant-like?" Claudius growled back, not lowering his sword as Gertrude looked between the two, trying to keep Laertes at bay by standing in front of him. "Let him go, Gertrude, do not fear our person. There's such divinity doth hedge a king, that treason can but peep to what it would, acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes, why thou art thus incensed. Let him go, Gertrude. Speak man."

"Where is my father?" Laertes demanded as Gertrude stepped back.

"Dead," Claudius replied, emotionlessly.

"But not by him!" Gertrude quickly added, seeing the young man's horrifyingly pale face.

"Let him demand his fill," Claudius ordered her and she bowed her head slightly in submission.

"How—?" Laertes choked before swallowed, the lump in his throat than breathed, "How came he dead?"

Color suddenly came back to his cheeks as he raised his sword toward Claudius, snarling, "I'll not be juggled with! To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil! Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit! I _dare _damnation. To this point I stand, that both the worlds I give to negligence, let come what comes. Only I'll be _revenged_ most thoroughly for my father!"

"Who shall stay you?' Claudius wondered.

"My will, not all the world!" Laertes cried then growled, "and for my means, I'll husband them so well, they shall go far with little."

"Good Laertes," Claudius nodded, sheathing his sword as Laertes only lowered his. "If you desire to know the certainty of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge, that, swoopstake, you will draw both friend _and_ foe? Winner _and_ loser?"

"None but his enemies," Laertes ground out, gripping the handle of his sword, tightly.

"Will you know them then?" Claudius retorted.

"To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms," Laertes explained, opening his arms to either side before lowering them again to continue, "And like the kind life-rendering pelican, repast them with my blood."

Claudius sighed and stepped toward Laertes to place his hands on the young man's shoulders, smiling, "Why, now you speak like a good child and a true gentleman. That I am guiltless of your father's death, and am most sensible in grief for it, it shall as level to your judgment pierce as day does to your eye."

"Let her go up!" someone called from one of the hatches, drawing their attention to it as they heard boot steps come from it.

"How now!" Laertes called, and thinking it was a trap, he lifted his sword toward the hatch, but froze when he saw his brother trudging up the stairs, looking like a ghost. Paler and thinner than he'd ever seen him.

"O heat, dry up my brains!" Laertes breathed, lowering his sword and dropping it with a clatter from his suddenly cold hand. "Tears seven times salt, burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye! By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight till our scale turn the beam!"

He stepped toward Ophelio as the younger man stared ahead, seeing without seeing, his clothes disheveled, his hair matted in disarray and he held his arms up as if he were carrying a bundle in them, but nothing rested in his arms.

"Dear gentleman," Laertes murmured, placing his hands on his brother's shoulders, trying to catch his gaze. "Kind brother. Sweet Ophelio! O, heavens! Is't possible, a young man's wits should be as mortal an old man's life? Nature is fine in love, and 'tis fine, it sends some precious instance of itself after the thing it loves."

Ophelio looked blankly at his brother, whose eyes widened in anticipation, hoping he would say something but instead, he sang, "They bore him barefaced on the bier. Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny. And in his grave rained many a tear – fare you well, my dove!"

Laertes choked back a sob, bowing his head along with his hands from his brother's shoulders, shuddering, "Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, it could not move thus."

"You must sing a-down a-down, and you call him a-down-a," Ohpelio continued singing shuffling toward Claudius and Gertrude. "O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward, that stole his master's daughter."

"This nothing's more than matter," Laetres called to them, as Ophelio stopped in front of Gertrude, motioning that he was lifting something from his invisible bundle as she stared at him in wonder.

"There's rosemary," he smiled, weakly as he placed an invisible something in her hand. "That's for remembrance. Pray…love…remember. And there is pansies…" He lifted a hand as if to gently place a flower in her hair, saying, "That's for thoughts."

"A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted," Laertres agreed.

Ophelio shuffled toward Claudius, glaring at him, motioning as if he were throwing things from his bundle at him, saying, "There's fennel for you, and columbines."

He shuffled back toward his brother, seemingly carding through the invisible bundle before handing something to him, nodding, "There's rue for you." He turned to face Claudius and Gertrude again, holding his hand to his heart, resuming, "And here's some for me. We may call it herd-grace o' Sundays. O, you must wear your rue with indifference."

He lifted another invisible flower from the bundle to hand it to Gertrude, murmuring, "There's a daisy. I would give you violets, but they withered…all…when my father died…"

Ophelio bowed his head, shuddering in sobs as Laertes stepped toward him, placing a hand on his shoulder and the younger man spun around to grip the other's collar, his wide, vacant eyes meeting his brother's, shuddering, "They say he made a good end…" He trailed off as he turned from Laertes to sing, "For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy."

"Thought and affliction," Laertes shuddered. "Passion, hell itself, he turns to favor and to prettiness."

They all watched as Ophelio shuffled toward the railing, all tense that he would throw himself over the railing and into the water but he only stared at the sea below, singing.

"And will he not come again? And will he not come again? No, no, he is dead…go to thy death-bed. He never will come again. His beard was as white as snow, all flaxen was his poll. He is gone, he is gone…"

Laertes stepped to his side, his hand on his shoulder again and Ophelio looked to him with silent tears rolling down his cheeks, murmuring, "And we cast away moan."

He turned to face the couple on the ship as Laertes felt a tear fall down his own cheek before the three jumped when Ophelio yelled, "God ha' mercy on his soul!"

They all stared at him with wide eyes as he shuffled back toward the hatch he'd emerged from, mumbling, "And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi' ye."

They watched him disappear below the ship and Laertes looked to the sky, shuddering, "Do you see this, O God?"

"Laertes," Claudius called, gently and the young man turned to them with wide eyes as he approached him. "I must commune with your grief, or you deny me right. Go but apart, make choice of whom your wisest friends you will. And they shall head and judge 'twixt you and me. If by direct or by collateral hand they find us touched, we will our kingdom give, our crown, our life, and all that we can ours, to you in satisfaction. But if not, be you content to lend your patience to us, and we shall jointly labor with your soul to give it due content."

"Let this be so," Laertes nodded. "His means of death, his obscure funeral – no trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones, no noble rite nor formal ostentation – cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth, that I must call it in question."

"So you shall," Claudius nodded, patting his shoulders. "And where the offence is, let the great ax fall. I pray you, go with me."

* * *

**A/N:** reviews?


	11. The Deadly Plan

**A/N:** new chappie! enjoy!

* * *

_**Chapter 11: The Deadly Plot**_

"What are they that would speak with me?" Horatio frowned at one of the crew members as he stood outside the captain's cabin of the _Wittenburg_, Hamletta having left him in charge of her ship until her own prophesied return.

"Seafaring men, Sir," the sailor replied. "They say they have letters for you."

Horatio frowned in thought before nodding, waving him on as he turned to head into the cabin, saying, "Let them come in."

The sailor nodded and hurried to bring the sailors to him as Horatio stepped into the cabin, leaning back on the desk and crossing his arms. He stared at a spot on the floor in deep thought.

"I do not know from what part of the world I should be greeted, if not from Lady Hamletta," he murmured to himself before looking up to the doorway when he saw movement. One of his sailors was leading the others to him as he stood and once the strangers were in the cabin, the other sailor shut the door as he left.

"God bless you, Sir," one sailor nodded, respectfully.

"Let Him bless thee, too," Horatio nodded back.

"He shall, Sir, an 't please Him," the sailor replied, digging into his breeches pocket. "There's a letter for you, Sir. It came from th' ambassador that was bound for England. If your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is."

He lifted the letter toward Horatio who snatched it and opened it, nearly ripping it as he turned to step behind the desk to sit in the chair and read.

_Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked this, give these fellows some means to the King. They have letters for him. Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled valor, and in the grapple I boarded them. On the instant, they got clear of our ship; so I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with me like thieves of mercy, but they knew what they did: I am to do a good turn for them. Let the King have the letters I have sent, and repair thou to me with as much speed as thou wouldst fly death. I have words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb; yet are they much too light for the bore of the matter. These good fellows will bring thee where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for England; of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell._

_Her that thou knowest thine,_

_Hamletta_

Horatio sighed, tiredly as he lowered the letter to the desk, running a hand through the mass of black curls on his head before looking to the sailors in front of him. He stood and hurried toward them.

"Come," he urged. "I will give you way for these your letters and do 't the speedier that you may direct me to him from whom you brought them."

* * *

_The __Denmark__..._

"Now must your conscience my acquaintance seal," Claudius explained to Laertes as they sat at his desk in the captain's cabin after calming the young man. "And you must put me in your heart for friend, sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear, that he which hath your noble father slain pursued my life."

"It well appears," Laertes nodded, sitting forward to lean on the desk. "But tell me why you proceeded not against these feats, so criminal and so capital in nature, as by your safety, greatness, wisdom, all things else, you mainly were stirred up."

"O, for two special reasons," Claudius smirked, leaning back in his chair to lift his feet and set his boots on the table. "Which may to you perhaps seem much unsinewed, but yet to me they're strong. The Queen her mother lives almost by her looks, and for myself – my virtue or my plague, be it either which – she is so conjunctive to my life and soul that, as the star moves not by in her sphere, I could not but by her."

He trailed off at the thought of Gertrude, staring at a spot on the wall before remembering himself and looking back to Laertes, continuing, "The other motive why to a public count I might not go is the great love the general gender bear him, who, dipping all his faults in their affection, work like the spring that turneth wood to stone, convert his gyves to graces, so that my arrows, too slightly timbered for so loud a wind, would have reverted to my bow again, but not where I have aimed them."

Laertes breathed through his nose, gritting his teeth, growling, "And so have I a noble father lost, a brother driven into desperate terms, whose worth, if praises may go back again, stood challenger on mount of all the age for his perfections!"

He slammed his fists on the desk before meeting Claudius' gaze with a glare, stating, "But my revenge _will_ come."

"Break not your sleeps for that," Claudius warned, swinging his feet off the desk to stand and step toward a box on the shelf behind him and remove two bottles from it, stepping around the desk to hand one of the bottles of rum to Laertes then leaned on the edge of the desk, facing the young man. "You must not think that we are made of stuff so flat and dull that we can let our beard be shook with danger and think it pastime."

Claudius took a swig of his rum bottle as Laertes took a long draught before the Pirate King leaned forward to place a hand on his shoulder, catching his gaze.

"You shortly shall hear more," Claudius assured Laertes. "I loved your father, and we love ourself, and that, I hope, will teach you to imagine—"

He was cut off by a knock on his cabin door and Laertes stood as Claudius frowned at the door when one of his crew entered.

"How now?" Cluadius called, unmoving from leaning on his desk, taking a swig of rum before questioning, "What news?"

"Letters, my lord, from Hamletta," the man replied, stepping toward him with an extended hand, the letters in it as Claudius choked on his next swig and Laertes looked to him in shock. "These to your Majesty…"

Claudius took the letters with wide eyes before the man reached into the satchel on his belt again and pulled out another letter, adding, "…this to the Queen."

"From Hamletta?" Claudius breathed with a frown, taking the last letter and setting it aside to look at the ones addressed to him before looking back at the sailor to question, "Who brought them?"

"Sailors, my lord, they say," he replied as Claudius began downing his rum. "I saw them not. They were given me by Claudio. He received them of him that brought them."

"Laertes, you shall hear them," Claudius assured him, seeing his anxiety and feeling his own as he opened the first letter then looked to the sailor to order, "Leave us."

Claudius pulled open the first letter as his cabin door shut and he took a moment to read over a few lines before standing to pace and read aloud to Laertes who sat again.

_High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your kingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes when I shall – first asking your pardon – thereunto recount the occasion of my sudden and more strange return._

_Hamletta_

"What should this mean?" Claudius scoffed, nervously, still pacing as Laetres watched him, drinking from his bottle of rum and Claudius took another swig from his own bottle before continuing, "Are all the rest come back? Or is it some abuse and no such thing?"

"Know you the hand?" Laertes wondered.

"'Tis her character," Claudius nodded, still looking at the letter. "'Naked'—And in a postscript here she says 'alone.' Can you advise me?"

Claudius handed the letter to Laertres who took it and examined it before shrugging and shaking his head replying, "I am lost in it, my lord. But…"

He handed the letter back to Claudius with a smirk, leaning back in his chair when the Pirate King took it with a frown.

"Let her come," Laertes finished. "It warms the very sickness in my heart that I shall live and tell her to her _teeth_ 'Thus didst thou'."

Laertes took another swig through a chuckle, the rum obviously going to his head as Claudius nodded with a smirk.

"If it be so, Laertes," Claudius replied, bowing slightly before turning to saunter around his desk and sit in his chair again. "As how should it be so? How otherwise? Will you be ruled by me?"

"Aye, my lord," Laertes nodded. "So will not o'errule me to a peace."

"To thine own peace," Claudius nodded, both lifting their bottles of rum, taking a swig before Claudius spoke again. "If she be now returned, as checking at her voyage, and that she means no more to undertake it, I will work her to an exploit, now ripe in my device, under the which she shall not choose but fall, and for her death no wind of blame shall breathe, but even her mother shall uncharge the practice and call it accident."

"My lord, I will be ruled, the rather if you could devise it so that I might be the organ," Laertes requested, frantically.

Claudius smirked and nodded, "It falls right. You have been talked of since your travel much, and that in Hamletta's hearing, for a quality wherein they say you shine. Your sum of parts did not together pluck such envy from her as did that one, and that, in my regard, of the unworthiest siege."

"What part is that, my lord?" Laertes frowned in wonder.

"A very ribbon in the cap of youth," Claudius smirked again. "Yet needful too, for youth no less becomes the light and careless livery that it wears than settled age his sables and his weeds, importing health and graveness. Two months since here was a gentleman of the _Normandy_. I have seen myself, and served against, the French, and they can well on horseback, but this gallant had witchcraft in 't. He grew unto his seat, and to such wondrous doing brought his horse as had he been encorpsed and demi-natured with the brave beast. So far he topped my thought that I in forgery of shapes and tricks come short of what he did."

"A Norman was 't?" Laertes wondered, thoughtfully.

"A Norman," Claudius nodded.

"Upon my life, Lamord," Laertes scoffed.

"The very same," Claudius nodded again.

"I know him well," Laertes nodded, leaning back in his chair. "He is the brooch indeed and a gem of all the nation."

"He made confession of you, and gave you such a masterly report for art and exercise in your defense, and for your rapier _most_ especial, that he cried out 'twould be a sight indeed if one could match you." Claudius paused to take a swig of his rum before continuing, "The 'scrimers of their nation he swore had neither motion, guard, nor eye, if you opposed them. Sir, of this report of his did Hamletta so envenom with her envy that she could nothing do but wish and _beg_ your sudden coming-o'er, to play with you. Now out of this…"

Claudius smirked, his plan coming together in his mind and Leartes frowned at him in wonder when he trailed off.

"What out of this, my lord?" Laertes asked, on the edge of his seat with anticipation.

"Laertes, was your father dear to you?" Claudius wondered, making Laertes' frown deepen in more wonder. "Or are you like a _painting_ of sorrow…a face without a heart?"

"Why ask you this?" Laertes ground out through gritted teeth.

"Not that I think you did not love your father," Claudius quickly added, then continued, "But that I know love is begun by time and that I seem in passages of proof, time qualifies the spark and fire of it. There lives within the very _flame_ of love a kind of wick or snuff that will abate it, and nothing is at a like goodness still. For _goodness_, growing to a pleurisy, dies in his own too-much. That we would do we _should_ do when we would, for this 'would' changes and hath abatements and delays as many as there are tongues, are hands, are accidents, and then this 'should' is like a spendthrift sigh, that hurts by easing."

Claudius took the last drink from his bottle of rum and leaned on his desk, closer to Laertes, saying, "But to the quick of th' ulcer: Hamletta comes back. What would you undertake to show yourself indeed your father's son more than in words?"

Laetres nearly slammed his bottle on the desk to stand from his chair and lean over on the desk to look Claudius in the eye, growling, "To cut his throat in the church."

Claudius gave a slow, dark, amused grin, replying, "No place indeed should murder sanctuarize…revenge should have _no_ bounds. But, good Laertes, will you do this?"

Laertes looked to an invisible spot on the desk before looking back to Claudius and giving a nod. Claudius' grin grew wider as Laertes sat again and the Pirate king leaned forward once more to divulge his plan.

"Keep close within your chamber. Hamletta, returned, shall know you are come home. We'll put on those shall praise your excellence and set a double varnish on the fame the Frenchman gave you…bring you, in fine, together and wager on your heads. She, being remiss, most generous, and free from all contriving, will not peruse the foils, so that with ease, or with a little shuffling, _you_ may choose a sword unbated, and in a pass of practice requite him for your father."

Feeling quite pleased with himself and his plan, Claudius leaned back in his chair again and set his boots on the surface of his desk again.

"I will do 't," Laertes nodded, taking the last drink of his rum. "And for that purpose I'll _anoint_ my sword. I bought an unction of a mountebank so mortal that, but dip a knife in it, where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare, collected from all simples that have virtue under the moon, can save the thing from death that is but _scratched_ withal. I'll touch my point with this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly, it may be _death_."

"Let's _further_, think of this," Claudius advised, rubbing his chin in thought before adding, "Weigh what convenience both of time and means may fit us to our shape. If _this_ should fail, and that our drift look through our bad performance, 'twere better not assayed. Therefore this project should have a back or second that might hold if this did blast proof."

Laertes nodded in agreement before opening his mouth to suggest something.

"Soft," Claudius stopped him from saying anything, staring ahead in thought. "Let me see. We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings…"

He trailed off in thought, still not looking to Laertes before lowering his feet from his desk and slamming his fist onto its surface, grinning at Laertes, "I have it! When in your motion you are hot and dry – as make your bouts more violent to that end – and that she calls for drink, I'll have prepared her a chalice for the nonce, whereon but _sipping_, if she by chance escape your venomed stuck, our purpose may hold there."

The young man grinned, deviously, but both men jumped in surprise when they heard a wailing sound from outside the door. They both stood, instantly when the doors to the cabin flew open and Gertrude ran in, tears spread over her cheeks and panting from running.

"But stay," Claudius frowned in wonder as he hurried toward Gertrude. "What noise?"

"One woe doth tread upon another's heel, so fast they follow," she sobbed, shaking her head in sorrow before she stepped toward Laertes, choking and sobbing, "You brother's drowned, Laertes."

Laertes eyes shot wide at Gertrude, his face going pale as Claudius sighed, running a hand of exhaustion through his silver hair. Gertrude gave a few more sobs as Laertes slowly lowered himself back into his chair, still staring at Gertrude.

"Drowned?" he breathed. "Where?"

"There is a willow grows askant the brooke that shows his hoar leaves I the glassy stream ashore," she shuddered, trying to calm her sobs as she explained. "Therewith fantastic garlands did he make of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, that liberal shepherds give a grosser name, but our cold maids do 'dead men's fingers' call them.

"There on the pendant boughs his coronet weeds clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke, when down his weedy trophies and himself fell in the weeping brook. His clothes spread wide, and mermaid-like awhile they bore him up, which time he chanted snatches of old lauds, as one incapable of his own distress or like a creature native and endued unto that element.

"But long it could not be till that his garments, heavy with their drink, pulled the poor wretch from his melodious lay…to muddy death."

Gertrude choked out the last word and she lifted her hands to her face to sob into them as Laertes looked away from her, his eyes red with tears as he stared ahead in disbelief.

"Alas," Laertes breathed, a tear running down his cheek. "Then…he drowned."

"Drowned…_drowned_!" Gertrude sobbed.

He lowered his head into his hand with a heavy, sorrowful sigh, replying, "Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelio, and therefore I forbid my tears. But yet it is our trick…nature her custom holds, let shame say what it will. When these are gone, the woman will be out."

He sniffled loudly before wiping his face and standing, abruptly, catching Claudius and Gertrude's gazes.

"Adieu, my lord," he nodded, respectfully through a broken tone. "I have a speech o' fire that fain would blaze, but that this folly drowns it."

The couple watched him march out of the cabin, the door slamming behind him and Claudius stepped toward Gertrude, gently gripping her arm as she looked to him.

"Let's follow, Gertrude," he murmured then sighed, "How much I had to do to calm his rage! Now fear I this will give it start again. Therefore, let's follow."

Gertrude sniffled, drying her eyes and nodding as Claudius gently pulled her toward the door to follow him.

* * *

**A/N:** reviews?


	12. The Funeral of Ophelio

**A/N:** new chappie!

* * *

_**Chapter 12: The Funeral of Ophelio**_

"Is he to be buried in Christian burial when he willfully seeks his own salvation?" the sailor asked his friend, digging the grave for Ophelio on the shore of an island in the dead of night.

"I tell thee he is," the second sailor nodded, sitting cross-legged in the sand drinking from the bottle of rum in his hand. He took a draught before adding, "Therefore make his grave straight. The crowner hath sat on him and finds it Christian burial."

"How can that be?" the gravedigger questioned frowning in wonder at his friend who gave a hiccup from his drink. "Unless he drowned himself in his own defense?"

"Why…'tis found so," the sailor drawled with a shrug.

"It _must_ be se offendendo, it cannot be else," the gravedigger argued thoughtfully, pausing in his digging. "For here lies the point: if _I_ drown myself wittingly, it argues an act, and an act hath _three_ branches—it is to act, to do, to perform. Argal, he drowned himself wittingly."

"Nay," the sailor groaned in annoyance. "But hear you, goddamn delver—"

"Give me leave," the gravedigger cut in, raising a hand to silence his friend before using his hands to geature as he resumed, "Here stands the man, good. If the man go to this water and drown himself, it is – will he, nill he – he goes, mark you that. But if the water come to _him_ and drown him, he drowns _not_ himself. Argal, he is _not_ guilty of his own death shortens not his own life."

"But is this law?" the drunken sailor wondered.

"Ay, marry, is't…crowner's 'quest law," the gravedigger nodded, resuming his work.

"Will you ha' the truth on it?" the Sailor asked. "If this had not been a gentleman, he should have been buried out o' Christian burial."

"Why, there thou sayst," the gravedigger laughed. "And the more the pity that great folk should have count'nance in this world to drown or hang themselves more than their even-Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers. They hold up Adam's profession."

"Was he a gentleman?"

"He was the first that ever bore arms."

"Why, he had none."

"What, art a heathen?" the gravedigger questioned with an incredulous frown at the drunk sailor, pausing in his work again. "How dost thou understand the scripture? The scripture says Adam _digged_. Could he dig without arm? I'll put another question to thee. If thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself—"

"Go to!" the sailor groaned in exasperation.

"What is he that builds stronger than either mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?" the gravedigger questioned anyway.

"The _gallows-maker_, for that frame outlives a thousand tenants," the sailor shot back before taking another swig of rum and the gravedigger laughed heartily.

"I like thy wit well, in good faith," he still laughed. "The gallows does well. But how does it well? It does well to those that do ill. Now, thou dost ill to say the gallows is built stronger than a church. Argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To 't again, come."

"'Who builds stronger than a mason, a ship-wright or a carpenter?'" the sailor wondered with a frown.

"Ay," the gravedigger nodded. "Tell me that, and unyoke."

"Marry, now I can tell," the sailor replied, seemingly enthusiastic.

"To 't!"

"I cannot tell," the sailor blurted, sardonically.

"Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating," the gravedigger retorted, resuming his work again. "And, when you are asked this question next say, 'a grave-maker.' The houses he makes lasts till Doomsday. Go, get thee in, and fetch me a stoup of liquor."

The sailor frowned and looked to his own rum bottle, thinking he might just give it up to the gravedigger. However, when he turned it upside-down only a drop rolled from the opening and he shrugged, resigned to being a go-for before standing and heading toward the _Denmark_ beached on the shore of the island. Neither one noticed Hamletta and Horatio trudging through the brush as the gravedigger began digging again, singing to himself.

_In youth when I did love, did love, methought it was very sweet  
__To contract—O—the time for a—my behove  
__O, methought there—a—was nothing—a—meet._

"Has this fellow no _feeling_ of his business?" Hamletta wondered incredulously as she and Horatio remained in the brush, watching him. "He _sings_ in grave-making."

"Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness," Horatio guessed.

"'Tis e'en so," Hamletta muttered, crossing her arm in disapproval. "The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense."

_But age with his stealing steps  
__Hath clawed me in his clutch  
__And hath shipped me into the land  
__As if I had never been such_

The pair watched as the gravedigger lifted a skull from his feet and tossed it outside the grave.

"That skull had a tongue in it and could sing once," Hamletta observed. "How the knave jowls it to the ground as if 'twere Cain's _jawbone_, that did the first murder! This might be the pate of a politician which this _ass_ now o'erreaches, one that would circumvent God, might it not?"

"Ay, my lady," Horatio simply nodded.

"Why, e'en so," she muttered, kicking at some brush at her feet before resuming, "And now my Lady Worm's chapless and knocked about the mazard with a sexton's spade. Here's _fine_ revolution, an we had the trick to see 't. Did these bones coat no more the breeding but to play at loggets with them? Mine _ache_ to think on 't."

_A pickax and a spade, a spade  
__For and a shrouding sheet  
__O, a pit of clay for to be made  
__For such a guest is meet_

"There's another," Hamletta announced as the gravedigger tossed another skull up from the grave and she tapped Horatio's arm, asking, "Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillities, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? Why does he suffer this mad knave _now_ to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel and will not tell him of his action of battery?"

She couldn't help but chuckle before resuming, "This fellow might be in 's time a great buyer of land, with his statues, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries. Is this the fine of his fines and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine _dirt_? Will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and _double_ ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will lie in this box, and must th' inheritor himself have no more, ha?"

"Not a jot more, my lady," Horatio agreed.

"Is not parchment made of skins?"

"Ay, my lady, and of calves' skins too."

"They are sheep _and_ calves which seek out assurance in that," Hamletta muttered, staring at the gravedigger as he worked then tapped Horatio's arm again, saying, "I will speak to this fellow."

Horatio turned wide eyes to her as she headed out of the brush and toward the gravedigger, but sighed in resignation and followed her, his hand on his sword in case anyone should recognize her and attack.

"Whose grave is this, sirrah?" Hamletta questioned the gravedigger, whose head shot up from his work with wide eyes before he relaxed as she sat herself in the sand, Horatio standing behind her, protectively.

"Mine, ma'am," he replied before resuming his digging and singing.

_O, a pit of clay for to be made  
__For such a guest is meet_

"I think it be thine _indeed_, for thou _liest_ in 't," Hamletta smirked, playing along.

"You lie out on 't, ma'am, and therefore 'tis not yours," the gravedigger replied, still working. "For my part, I do not lie in 't, yet it is mine."

"Thou _dost_ lie in 't, to be in 't and say it is thine," Hamletta retorted. "'Tis for the _dead_, not for the quick…therefore thou liest."

"'Tis a _quick_ lie, ma'am. 'Twill away again from me to you."

"What man dost thou dig it for?" Hamletta laughed at his words.

"For no man, ma'am."

"What _woman_ then?"

"For none, neither."

"_Who_ is to be buried in 't?"

"One that _was_ a man, ma'am, but, rest his soul, he's dead."

"How _absolute_ the knave is!" Hamletta blurted toward Horatio, craning her neck back to see him as he frowned down at her. "We must speak by the card or equivocation will undo us. By the _Lord_, Horatio, these three years I have took note of it: the age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of a courtier, he galls his kibe!"

Horatio opened his mouth to reply but she looked away to ask the gravedigger, "How long hast thou been grave-maker?"

"Of all the days i' th' year, I came to 't that day that our last King Hamlet overcame Fortinbras," the gravedigger replied, still working.

Hamletta frowned, trying to calculate it in her head how long ago that had been, but the thought of her father made her mind go blank, so she asked in a soft voice, "How long is that since?"

"Cannot you tell that?" the gravedigger wondered with a frown, pausing to look up at her as she shot her wide, turquoise blue eyes at him. "Every fool can tell that. It was that very day that young Hamletta was born—she that is mad, and sent onto the _England_."

Horatio looked to the top of Hamletta's had to watch her nod, calmly and ask through a smirk, "Ay, marry, why was she sent onto the _England_?"

"Why, because she was mad," the gravedigger laughed. "She shall recover her wits there. Or if she do not, 'tis no great matter there."

"Why?" she frowned in wonder.

"'Twill not be seen in her there," he shrugged. "There the men are as mad as she."

"How came she mad?" she asked, wondering what rumors were being spread around the ships about her.

"Very strangely, they say," the gravedigger replied, resuming his work.

"How 'strangely'?"

"Faith e'en with losing his wits."

"Upon what _ground_?"

"Why there on the _Denmark_," the gravedigger laughed again. "I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years."

"How long will a man lie i' th' Earth ere he rot?" Hamletta wondered, vaguely interested.

"Faith if he be not rotten before he die…as we have many pocky corses nowadays that will scarce hold the laying in…he will last you some eight year or nine year. A tanner will last you nine year."

"Why _he_ more than another?" she asked.

"Why, ma'am,his hide is tanned with his trade that he will keep out water a great while," he explained. "And your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body." He looked down at his feet and lifted the skull at his feet with a smile and showed it off to her, saying, "Here's a skull now hath lien you i' th' Earth three-and-twenty years."

"Whose was it?"

"A whoreson _mad_ fellow's it was. Whose do _you_ think it was?"

Hamletta frowned in thought as she examined the skull, not taking it from the gravedigger as he held it toward her, but she shook her head replying, "Nay, I know not."

"A pestilence on him for a mad rogue!" the grave digger laughed, looking at the skull's huge, empty eye-sockets. "He poured his flagon of Rhenish pn my head once. This same skull, ma'am, was, ma'am, Yorick's skull, the King's first mate."

Hamletta's eyes widened, her jaw dropping as she felt tears prick her eyes as the name registered in her memory.

"This?" she breathed, nostalgia rolling over her like a wave onto the shore.

"E'en that," he nodded.

"L-Let me see?" she whispered, holding her hands out and he set the skull in her hands as she reverently took it, pulling it close to examine it again as Horatio sat next to her. "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio…a fellow of _infinite_ jest, of most _excellent_ fancy. He hath bore me on his back a _thousand_ times, and now how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed…I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a _roar_? Not one now to mock your own grinning? _Quite_ chapfallen."

She couldn't help but giggle before saying, "Now get you to my lord's chamber, and tell him, let him paint an inch thick, so this favor he must come. Make him laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing."

"What's that, my lady?" he wondered, watching her stare at the skull, even as she spoke to him.

"Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i' th' Earth?"

"E'en so," he nodded.

"And _smelt_ so?" she grinned, shoving the skull into his face and he cringed away at the smell as she laughed and set the skull down again.

"E'en so, my lady," he couldn't help but laugh as the gravedigger continued his work and Hamletta sighed.

"To what base uses we may return, Horatio," she mused. "Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping a bunghole?"

"'Twere to consider _too_ curiously to consider so," Horatio muttered, picking at the sand on his boots.

"No, faith, not a jot," she scoffed, staring at Yorick's skull. "But to follow him thither, with modesty enough and likelihood to lead it, as thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust…the dust is earth, of earth we make loam, and why of that loam whereto he was converted might they not stop a beer barrel? Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, might stop a hole to keep the wind away." She sighed again and rested her face in her hands to rub her eyes, adding, "O, that that earth which kept the world in awe should patch a wall t' expel the winter's flaw."

Horatio said nothing before something caught his gaze past the grave. He tapped Hamletta's arm to get her attention and when she looked in the direction he pointed her eyes shot wide at the sight of Claudius, Gertrude, Laertes, a priest and a few other sailors carrying the body for the grave heading toward them.

"Here come the King, the Queen, the courtiers," she breathed in realization then frowned in wonder at the covered body as she stood, Horatio standing next to her. "Who is this they follow? And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken the corse they follow did with desperate hand fordo its own life. 'Twas of some estate." She pulled on Horatio's sleeve as she headed back toward the thick brush behind them, saying, "Couch we awhile and mark."

They both hurried back into the brush and hid themselves to watch the group approach the grave, the gravedigger climbing out and stepping aside with his shovel.

"What ceremony else?" Laertes asked the priest, his voice cracking only slightly, Hamletta noticed.

"That is Laertes, a very noble youth," Hamletta told Horatio, but he said nothing as she urged, "Mark."

"What ceremony else?!" Laertes snapped impatiently at the priest.

"His obsequies have been as far enlarged as we have warranty," the priest replied, calmly. "His death was doubtful and, but that great command o'ersways the order he should in ground unsanctified been lodged till the last trumpet. For charitable prayers shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on him. yet here he is allowed his virgin crants, and bringing home of bell and burial."

"Must there be no more done?" Laertes wondered.

"No more be done," the priest replied. "We should profane the service of the dead to sing a requiem and such rest to him as to peace-parted souls."

"Lay him i' th' earth," Laertes ordered the sailors. "And from his fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring. I tell thee, churlish priest, a ministering _angel_ shall my brother be when thou liest howling."

"What…" Hamletta breathed, gripping Horatio's sleeve in shock as she now couldn't tear her eyes away from the body being lowered into the grave. "The…The fair Ophelio?!"

"Sweets to the sweet," Gertrude announced, scattering flowers over the grave as she choked out her words. "I hoped thou shouldest have been my Hamletta's husband. I thought thy bed to have decked, sweet fellow, and not have strewed thy grave."

Hamletta felt tears spring to her eyes and roll unbidden down her cheeks at her mother's words and the sadness of losing Ophelio.

"O, treble woe fall ten times treble on that cursed head whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense deprived thee of!" Laertes shouted at Gertrude, making Hamletta frown and anger spark in her at his words and who they were directed to. She managed to keep herself from charging him as the gravedigger was about to shovel the sand back over Ophelio's body. "Hold off the earth awhile, till I have caught him once more in mine arms."

Leartes jumped into the grave, and Horatio caught Hamletta's arm to keep her from running out of the brush when she shot to her feet. They were both still hidden as Laertes lifted Ophelio's limp body in his arms and looked to the gravedigger.

"Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead, till of this flat mountain you have made t' o'ertop old Pelion or the skyish head of blue Olympus!" Laertes ordered the gravedigger and Hamletta had had enough.

She shoved away from Horatio's grip, marching out of the brush and he followed as she snarled, "What is he whose grief bears such an emphasis, whose phrase of sorrow conjures the wandering stars and makes them stand like wonder-wounded hearers?! This is I, Hamletta the Pirate!"

"The devil take thy soul!" Laertes growled, climbing from the grave.

"Thou prayest not _well_!" Hamletta shot back and Laertes launched himself from the grave to tackle her to the ground.

The surrounding group watched as Laertes threw punches at Hamletta's head, only to hit the sand as she dodged them and she jammed her knee into his stomach, making him grunt in pain before quickly recovering as she shoved him off of her to shoot to her feet. He scrambled to stand as well and threw his arms around her shoulders, one hand clamping around her throat in an attempt to choke her.

"I prithee…take thy finger from my throat," Hamletta choked out, his hand keeping the air from her lungs. "For though I am not…splentitive and rash, yet have I in me something dangerous…which let thy wisdom fear. Hold…off…thy hand!"

"Pluck them asunder," Claudius ordered his sailors, casually and they sprang toward Lartes as Horatio tried to help Hamletta out of his grip.

"Hamletta! Hamletta!" Gertrude called and tried to run toward the group to help her but Claudius grabbed her arm to pull her back, even as she struggled.

Laertes grip on Hamletta's neck loosened enough to let her turn and land a punch to his face, making him stumble into the arms of the sailors as Horatio gripped her arms to pull her back, pleading, "Good my lady, be quiet."

"Why?!" she snarled over her shoulder before looking to Laertes as he wiped the blood from his mouth. "I will fight with him upon this theme until my eyelids will no longer wag!"

"O my daughter, what theme?!" Gertrude cried, struggling to be free of Claudius' grip but he held her fast.

Hamletta stilled in Hortio's grip and he let her go so that she could step toward the grave and stare down at Ophelio's body, shuddering, "I loved Ophelio."

She turned a glare to Laertes and growled, "Forty _thousand_ brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up _my_ sum. What wilt _thou_ do for him?!"

"O, he is _mad_, Laertes," Claudius grumbled, finally letting Gertrude free.

"For love of God, forbear her!" she pleaded to Laertes.

"'Swounds, show me what thou't do!" Hamletta shouted at him, then mocked. "Woo't weep, woo't fight, woo't fast, woo't tear thyself, woo't drink up easel, eat a crocodile?! _I'll_ do't!"

She glared at him as she marched toward him where he was still being held by Claudius' men.

"Dost thou come here to whine?" she growled. "To _outface_ me with leaping in his grave? Be buried quick with him…and so will _I_!"

She ran toward the grave as if to jump into it as she threatened to, making everyone gasp and Laertes try to advance but she landed on the other side of the grave, spinning around to glare at him.

"And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw millions of acres on us, till our ground, singeing his pate against the burning zone, make Ossa like a _wart_!" she nearly screamed before looking down at Ophelio's body and feeling the tears return to her eyes as she knelt down at the edge of the grave, murmuring, "Nay, and thou'lt mouth…I'll _rant_ as well as thou."

"This is mere madness," Gertrude told Laertes as she stepped toward him to catch his attention, distracting him as the sailors holding him released him. "And thus awhile the fit will work on her. Anon, as patient as the female dove when that her golden couplets are disclosed, his silence will sit drooping."

"Hear you, sir," Hamletta growled, making all eyes shoot to her as she stood and stepped around the grave to gently move her mother away and stand directly in front of him, staring him down. "What is the reason that you use me thus?"

She tried searching his eyes for the reason, but saw nothing. She was familiar with this expression from him. She knew she would get nothing from him. She sighed, bowing her head and Horatio placed a hand on her shoulder, making her glance to him before shrugging him away and looking back at Laertes.

"But it is…no matter," she muttered, sniffling as she marched around him and back toward the brush, waving at Horatio to follow her, throwing over her shoulder, "Let Hercules himself do what he may. The cat will mew, and dog will have his day!"

Everyone watched as Hamletta disappeared into the brush again, no one knowing where she was headed and Claudius stepped up next to Horatio.

"I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon her," he requested and Horatio nodded, quickly heading after Hamletta as Claudius stepped toward Laertes to murmur to him, Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech. We'll put the matter to the present push."

He turned to Gertrude and snapped, "Good Gertrude, set some watch over your daughter."

Gertrude gave him a glare but he only turned back to Laertes to continue, "This grave shall have a living monument. An hour of quiet shortly shall we see, till then in _patience_ our proceeding be."

* * *

**A/N:** reviews?


	13. Proposal Made

_**Chapter 13: Proposal Made**_

"So much for this," Hamletta sighed, now back on the _Denmark_, lying back in a hammock below deck, Horatio sitting in the hammock next to her. The hammock she lay in swung slightly with the swaying of the ship as she went on, "Now shall you see the other. You do remember all the circumstance?"

"Remember, my lady," Horatio scoffed, indignantly and Hamletta waved her hand at him in dismissal, making him chuckle before she continued.

"Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting that would not let me sleep," she resumed, staring up at ceiling. "Methought I la worse than the mutinies in the bilboes. Rashly—and praised be rashness for it, let us know, our indiscretion sometime serves us well when our deep plots do pall, and that should learn us there's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will."

"That is most certain," he nodded, definitely, before she sat up to sit nose to nose with him.

"Up from my cabin, m sea-gown scarfed about me, in the dark groped I to find out them," she whispered. "Had my desire, fingered their packet, and in fine withdrew to mine own room again, making so bold my fears forgetting manners to unfold their grand commission, where I found, Horatio, a royal knavery. An exact command, larded with many several sorts of reasons importing the _Denmark's _health and the _England's_ too, with…ho!" She laughed, shaking her head and wagging her finger at him as she continued, "Such bugs and goblins in my life that on the supervise, no leisure bated, no, not to stay the grinding of the ax, my head should be struck off."

"Is 't possible?" Horatio murmured.

"Here's the commission," she nodded, reaching into her vest pocket for a piece of paper to hand it to him and he looked it over. "Read it at more leisure. But wilt thou hear now how I did proceed?"

"I beseech you," he entreated, nodding adamantly, and she glanced around before smirking at him.

"Being thus benetted round with villainies, or I could make a prologue to my brains, they had begun the play," she whispered. "I sat me down, devised a new commission, wrote it fair. I once did hold it, as our statists do, a baseness to write fair, and labored much how to forget that learning. But, sir, now it did me yeoman's service. Wilt thou know th' effect of what I wrote?"

"Ay, good my lady," he nodded, making her grin, mischievously.

"An earnest conjuration from the King, as the _England_ was his faithful tributary, as love between them like the palm might flourish, as peace should still her wheaten garland wear and stand a comma 'tween their amities, and many suchlike ases of great charge, that, on the view and knowing of these contents, without debatement further, more or less, he should those bearers put to sudden death, not shriving time allowed."

"How was this sealed?" he frowned in wonder, looking at the seal on the paper.

"Why, even in that was heaven ordinant," she grinned, holding up her right hand with a huge gold ring on her middle finger. "I had my father's signet in my purse, which was the model of the _Denmark's_ flag. Folded the writ up in the form of th' other, subscribed it, gave impression, placed it safely, the changeling never known. Now, the next day was our sea-fight, and what to this was sequent thou knowest already."

"So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to 't."

"Why, mate, they did make _love_ to this employment," she grinned, lying back in her hammock, her hands behind her head, staring up at the ceiling again, her tone losing its humor. "They are not near my conscience. Their defeat does by their own institution grow. 'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes between the pass and fell incensed points of mighty opposites."

"Why, what a queen is this," Horatio murmured.

"Does it not, think thee, stand me now upon, he that hath killed my king and whored my mother, popped in between th' election and my hopes, thrown out his angle for my proper life, and such cozenage." She raised her arm with a fist. "Is it not perfect conscience to quit him with this arm? And is 't not to be damned to let this canker of our nature come in further evil?"

"It must be shortly known to him from the _England_ what is the issue of the business there."

"It will be short. The interim's mine, and a man's life's no more than to say 'one'," she replied, pausing for a moment before sighing and adding, "But I am very sorry, good Horatio, that to Laertes I forgot myself, for by the image of my cause I see the portraiture of his. I'll court his favors. But, sure, the bravery of his grief dud put me into a tow'ring passion."

He nodded before frowning when he caught the sound of boot steps above them, heading for the hatch leading below. He stood, placing his hand on his sword, drawing Hamletta's attention and making her sit up in her hammock to look to the hatch as well as someone made their way down the steps.

"Peace," he whispered. "Who comes here?"

Hamletta frowned at the short man in tall black boots, blue velvets and a huge, black hat with a blue ostrich feather stuck in it. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and swept his hat off revealing green eyes and curly auburn hair that fell in his face as he bowed. She recognized him as one of Claudius' men, Osric.

"Your ladyship as right welcome back to the _Denmark_," Osric grinned, holding his hat to his chest as Hamletta stood, setting a hand on Horatio's where it still sat on his sword.

"I humbly thank you, sir," she grinned back, falsely, patting Horatio's hand and making him lower it, then whispered to Horatio, "Dost know this waterfly?"

Osric frowned between them, not hearing her whispers.

"No, my good lady," Horatio admitted, smirking at Osric's confusion.

"Thy state is more gracious, for 'tis a vice to know him," she murmured. "He hath _many _ships. Let a beast be lord of beasts and his crib shall stand at the king's mess. 'Tis a chough, but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt."

Horatio chuckled, making Osric frown at him again before the latter spoke again.

"Sweet lady, if your ladyship were at leisure, I should impart a thing to you from his Majesty," Osric grinned, making Hamletta sneer before she gave a gracious nod.

"I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of spirit," she smiled, politely, then frowned before waving at his hat. "Put your bonnet to his right use. 'Tis for the head."

"I thank your ladyship," Osric nodded, not lifting his hat. "It is very hot."

"No, believe me, 'tis very cold," she insisted, nudging Horatio's arm and grinning mischievously. "The wind is…northerly."

"It is…indifferent cold, my lady, indeed," Osric half agreed.

"No, believe me, 'tis very sultry and hot for my complexion," she smirked, brushing her fingers under her chin.

"Exceedingly, my lady," Osric nodded, politely. "It is very sultry, as 'twere…I cannot tell how. My lady, his Majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a great wager on your head. Sir, this the matter—"

"I beseech you, remember," Hamletta urged again, motioning to put his hat on again.

"Nay, good my lady, for my ease, in good faith," Osric nearly ground out through gritted teeth, making Horatio and Hamletta smirk as the noticed she'd gotten a rise out of him. "Ma'am, here is newly come to court Laertes—believe me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent differences, of very soft society and great showing. Indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or calendar of gentry, for you shall find in him the continent of what part a gentleman would see."

Hamletta sighed, flopping onto her hammock again, lying back with her back facing him, Horatio leaning on the post supporting his.

"Sir," she began. "His definement suffers no perdition in you, though I know to divide him inventorially would dozy th' arithmetic of memory, and yet but yaw neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in the verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of great article, and his infusion of such dearth and rareness as, to make true diction of him, his umbrage, nothing more."

"Your ladyship speaks most infallibly of him," Osric chuckled, making her frown and sit up to look at in wonder.

"The concernancy, sir?" she smirked as Horatio strolled around her to stand on the other side of her. "Why do we wrap the gentleman in our more rawar breath?"

"Ma'am?" Osric frowned and Horatio chuckled before leaning toward her.

"Is 't not possible to understand in another tongue?" he smirked. "You will to 't, ma'am, really."

"What imports the nomination of this gentleman?" Hamletta questioned.

"Of Laertes?" Osric frowned in wonder as Horatio leaned down to murmur in her ear again.

"His purse is empty already," he whispered. "All 's golden words are spent."

"Of him, sir," Hamletta answered Osric, shoving on Horatio's shoulder with a smirk.

"I know you are not ignorant—"

"I would you did, sir," she cut in, standing to lean on the post holding her hammock up, Horatio leaning on the other side. "Yet, in faith, if you did, it would not much approve me. Well, sir?"

"You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is—"

"I dare not confess that," she scoffed. "Lest I should compare with him in excellence. But to know a man well were to know himself."

"I mean, ma'am, for his weapon. But in the imputation laid on him by them, in his meed he's unfollowed."

"What's his weapon?"

"Rapier and dagger."

"That's _two_ of his weapons," she murmured, placing a hand on her chin in thought, whispering, "But, well…"

"The King, ma'am, hath wagered with him six Barbary horses, against the which he has impawned, as I take it, six French rapiers and poniards, with their assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so. Three of the carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very responsive to the hills, most delicate carriages, and of very liberal conceit," Osric explained, making Hamletta frown at him.

"What call you the 'carriages'?" she asked as Horatio spoke around the column.

"I knew you must be edified by the margent ere you had done," he whispered, making her swat away his comments like flies in the air, flying into her face.

"The carriages, ma'am, are the hangers," Osric replied.

"The phrase would be more germane to the matter if we could carry a cannon by our sides," she mused. "I would it might be 'hangers' till then. But on. Six Barbary horses against six French swords, their assigns, and three liberal-conceited carriages—that's the French bet against the Danish. Why is this all…um…'impawned,' as you call it?"

"The King, ma'am, hath laid, ma'am, that in a dozen passed between yourself and him, he shall not exceed you three hits," Osric explained. "He hath laid on twelve for nine, and it would come to immediate trial if your lordship would vouchsafe the answer."

Horatio looked to Hamletta in worry as she thought for a moment before answering.

"How if I answer no?" she asked, crossing her arms in front of her and looking Osric square in the eye, making him fidget before he answered.

"I mean, my lady, the opposition of your person in trial."

"Sir, I will lie here in my hammock. If it please his Majesty, it is the breathing time of day with me." Hamletta thought a moment longer before nodding, "Let the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the King hold his purpose, I will win for him, and I can. If not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits."

"Shall I deliver _you _e'en so?" Osric asked.

"Too this effect, sir," she nodded, turning toward her hammock to lay back in it again with a wave of her hand as she added, "After what _flourish _your nature will."

"I commend my duty to your ladyship," Osric grinned.

"Yours," she muttered, waving him away and he bowed before placing his hat back on his head and making his way back up the stairs above decks. Horatio strolled toward the bottom step to watch him leave as Hamletta laughed, "He does well to _commend_ it himself. There are no tongues else for 's turn."

"He did comply, sir, with his dug before he sucked it," she muttered. "Thus has he…and many more of the same breed that I know the drossy age dotes on…only got the tune of the time, and out of a habit of encounter, a kind of _yeasty_ collection, which carries them through the most fanned and winnowed opinions, and do but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out."

She lifted her hands and formed an invisible bubble before blowing it away, into the air, making Horatio laugh as she chuckled before they suddenly stopped at hearing footsteps from the stares again. Horatio turned to see another one of Claudius' crew hurrying down the steps.

"My lady," he called, and she waved a hand, without a word as Horatio stepped back, out of her way. "His Majesty commended him to you by young Osric, who brings back to him that you attend him on the deck. He sends to know if your pleasure hold to play with Laertes, or that you will take longer time."

"I am constant to my purposes," she drawled, irritably. "They follow the King's pleasure. If his fitness speaks, mine is ready now or whensoever, provided I be so able as now."

"The King and Queen and all are coming down," the sailor reported.

"In happy time," she sang, waving her hand as if conducting, making Horatio snicker before he covered his mouth, feigning that he was brushing something from the tip of his nose.

"The Queen desires you to use some gentle entertainment to Laertes before you fall to play."

Hamletta groaned, dramatically, letting her hand fall toward the floor, her head falling back as well before mocking, "She well instructs me."

The sailor bowed slightly before heading back up the step, Horatio watching him disappear before looking to Hamletta, his hand hanging on his sword.

"You will lose, my lady," he warned, making her frown up at him before sitting up in her hammock.

"I do not think so," she agreed, standing and straightening herself out before crossing her arms again, leaning sideways against him as he leaned on a column. "Since he went into France, I have been in continual practice. I shall win at the odds, but thou wouldst not think how ill all's here about my heart. But…it is no matter."

"Nay, good my lady—"

"It is _my_ foolery," she cut in as they both stood tall to face each other, and she placed her hands on his shoulders as she continued, "But it is such a kind of gaingiving as would perhaps trouble a woman."

"If your mind dislike anything, obey it," he urged her, gripping her arms as she sighed heavily at him, but he caught her gaze again. "I will forestall their repair hither and say you are not fit!"

"Not a whit," she replied, shaking her head and looking him in the eye to get her point across. She gripped his shirt in rage, but not at him as she continued, "We _defy _augury. There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come, it will be, if it be not to come, it will be now, if it be not now, yet it _will_ come."

She sighed and lifted her hands to his face, pressing her palms to his cheeks to keep his gaze as hers softened.

"The readiness is all," she whispered. "Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what is 't to leave betimes? Let be."

He swallowed and she noticed tears in his eyes before he tried blinking them away. She gave a small smile before her eyes shot wide when he grabbed her face and pulled her lips to his. She stood stalk still, not knowing whether to kiss him in return or push him away, so she remained still until he pulled back, not meeting her wide-eyed stare when his hands slipped from her face. He gestured that she go ahead of him and she turned but did not move for a moment before her feet finally found themselves and she made her way toward the stairs, heading to the upper deck, Horatio following.

* * *

**A/N:** Osric played by Tom Hiddleston...because I cast characters, I can't help it. reviews?


	14. The Final Play

_**Chapter 14: The Final Play**_

"Come, Hamletta!" Claudius grinned, waving at her as she stepped to his cabin door, Horatio behind her, both acting as though nothing had happened between them below decks. Claudius grabbed Laertes hand as the young man sat to his right, standing and dragging Laertes with him. Laertes fixed a glare on Hamletta as she approached the table where Gertrude and an assembled party sat. "Come, and take this hand from me."

Hamletta glared at Claudius as she made her way to the table, stopping next to her mother, who sat across the table in front of Claudius, Horatio stepping to the right of the room to watch in silence. She leaned down and pressed a kiss to Gertrude's hairline as the woman looked up at her, but she kept her glare on Claudius before standing tall. Gertrude took her hand as Hamletta began her approach toward Claudius and Laertes, all eyes on her. She took Laertes hand as he still scowled at her, and he gripped it tightly, but she matched his grip with a smug smirk.

"Give me your pardon, sir," she said, seriously as she clasped his hand in both of hers, their hands joined in front of Claudius but she kept her gaze on Laertes' eyes. "I have done you wrong, but pardon 't as you are a gentleman. This presence knows, and you must needs have heard, how I am punished with a sore distraction. What I have done that might your nature, honor, and exception roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness. Was 't Hamletta wronged Laertes? Never Hamletta. If Hamletta from herself does wrong Laertes, then Hamletta does it not, Hamletta denies it. Who does it, then? Her madness. If 't be so, Hamletta is of the faction that is wronged. Her madness is poor Hamletta's enemy."

She looked to the group, gesturing to them with one hand as she continued, "Sir, in this audience, let my disclaiming from a purposed evil free me so far in your most generous thoughts that I have shot my arrow o'er the house and hurt my brother."

Laertes glanced around the table before looking back to Claudius who nodded, then to Hamletta who waited for his response, and he sighed, nodding, "I am satisfied in nature, whose motive in this case should stir me most to my revenge, but in my terms of honor I stand aloof and will no reconcilement till by some elder masters of known honor I have a voice and precedent of peace to keep my name ungored. But till that time I do receive your offering love like love and will not wrong it."

The whole table sighed relief as Gertrude clapped with a grin as Hamletta nodded and smiled, "I embrace it freely."

They released each other's hands and she glanced at the weapons set around the room then back to Laertes with a smirk.

"And will this brothers' wager frankly play," she grinned, turning to Osric as he held some swords and stepping around the table again, waving him on, "Give us the foils."

When Osric looked to Claudius as Laertes made his way around him to approach them as well. Hamletta frowned between his gaze and him.

"Come on," she urged, holding out a hand.

"Come, one for me," Laertes nodded, stepping next to her and holding his hand out as well.

"I'll be your foil, Laertes," she smirked, nudging him with her elbow. "In mine ignorance your skill shall, like a star i' th' darkest night, stick fiery off indeed."

"You mock me, madam," he nearly snarled back at her.

"No," she frowned, raising her right hand. "By this hand."

"Give them the foils, young Osric," Claudius nodded with a huge grin, waving him on. "Cousin Hamletta, you know the wager?"

"Very well, my lord," Hamletta nearly muttered as she was handed a rapier, Laertes one of his own. "Your Grace has laid the odds o' th' weaker side."

"I do not fear it," Claudius chuckled, waving her off as they tested their swords on the air, pacing away from the table. "I have seen you both. But since he is better, we have therefore odds."

"This is too heavy," Laertes snapped at Osric about his sword, handing it back to him. "Let me see another."

"This likes _me _well," Hamletta smiled, rolling her wrist with the rapier in it before asking Osric, "These foils all have all a length?"

"Ay, my good lady," Osric nodded, handing Laertes another blade that he tested again.

"Set me the stoups of wine upon that table," Claudius ordered, waving the sailors around as they all made their way out of the cabin for room for the duel. "If Hamletta give the first or second hit or quit in answer of the third exchange, let all the cannons their ordinance fire. The King shall drink to Hamletta's better breath, and in the cup a union shall he throw, richer than that which four successive kings in the _Denmark's _crown have worn."

He held up a large pearl before seeing a sailor with two glasses of rum approaching him, and he waved the sailor over, urging, "Give me the cups, and let the kettle to the trumpet speak, the trumpet to the cannoneer without, the cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth, 'now the King drinks to Hamletta.' Come, begin. And you, the judges, bear a wary eye."

He gestured to Osric and Horatio as they stepped into view, a crowd circled around Hamletta and Laertes as they poised for the play.

"Come on, sir," Hamletta smirked, raising her blade.

"Come, my lady," Laertes growled, glaring at her.

Laertes made the first move, striking out at Hamletta who barely had time to react, but she managed to parry the blow away, catching her footing quickly. Horatio gritted his teeth at Laertes as he attacked Hamletta but he remained where he was, as Hamletta lunged, but Laertes dodged, then Laertes made a lunge for her which she dodged and took the opportunity to spin her blade around to swipe at his arm with the dull side so as not to hurt him.

"One!" she grinned as they stepped away.

"No!" Laertes snapped.

"Judgment?" Hamletta smirked, pointing her sword toward Horatio, then to Osric.

"A hit," Osric nodded. "A very palpable hit."

"Well, again," Laertes snarled, poising again.

"Stay, give me a drink," Claudius ordered, lifting the mug and the pearl in the other hand as Hamletta looked to him with a frown. "Hamletta, this pearl is thine. Here's to thy health."

He took a drink before dropping the pearl into the mug and held it toward Hamletta, making her glare at him suspiciously.

"Give her the cup," Claudius ordered one of the sailors, meeting her gaze.

Hamletta watched a sailor take the cup from Claudius and bring it toward her, but she waved it away, shaking her head.

"Nay, I'll…" she began as the sailor stopped and she looked back to Claudius, seeing something she didn't like…at all. "I'll play this bout first. Set it by awhile."

She glanced to her mother, meeting her gaze before she turned to Laertes, waiting impatiently.

"Come," she nodded to Laertes, beckoning him with a hand ad her glare.

He attacked again, but this time she was ready for it, but she noticed he was fighting in more anger than he had before. She realized this wouldn't be as easy as she thought it might be. It took her some time before she was able to hit him again, this time in the thigh.

"Another hit," she called, a bit more nervous now as she glanced around at them, meeting Horatio's gaze and he straightened, sensing her unease. She looked back to Laertes as they paced around each other and asked, "What say you?"

"A touch, a touch," Laertes muttered, looking up at Hamletta who still looked worried and he took it as skepticism. "I do confess 't!"

"Our son will win," Claudius smirked, evilly and Gertrude approached Hamletta, grabbing the mug meant for Hamletta from the sailor holding it and strolling toward her.

"She's fat and scant of breath," she smiled, pulling her handkerchief from around her neck and handed it to her. "Here, Hamletta, take my napkin, rub thy brows. The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamletta."

Gertrude dabbed Hamletta's forehead free of sweat then raised the cup with a grin, making Hamletta stare wide eyes at her. Daughter reached out to mother as she sauntered away, still holding the cup and trying, "Good madam—!"

"Gertrude," Claudius called, drawing their attention to him when he cut into Hamletta's call as he begged, "Do not drink."

"I _will_, my lord," Gertrude giggled, turning to Hamletta with the cup up to her lips and when their eyes met, Hamletta saw it in her gaze. She knew. "I pray you pardon me."

Hamletta felt as though she'd been stabbed as she drank from the cup, before she looked to Claudius as he met Laertes halfway, murmuring into his ear. Her anger boiled up as she realized exactly what he was saying.

"It is the poisoned cup," he shuddered at Laertes. "It is too late."

"I…dare not drink yet, madam," Hamletta objected as she stumbled a step toward her, her kerchief raised. "By and by."

"Come," Gertrude sighed, raising her kerchief and rubbing it over Hamletta's face as she wrapped an arm around her to steady her. "Let me wipe they face."

Hamletta caught Horatio's gaze again and nodded him toward her, making him race out to take the drooping Gertrude from her, still trying to wipe her face. Horatio gathered Gertrude in his arms and walked her toward the crowd again, Hamletta's hand gripping the hilt of her rapier as Laertes still spoke to Claudius.

"My lord, I'll hit him _now_," Laertes growled.

"I do not think 't," Claudius refused.

"And yet it is almost against my conscience."

"Come for a third, Laertes!" Hamletta snarled, making all eyes shoot to her as she paced like a lion in cage, her eyes on fire as she glared at the pair. "You do but dally. I pray you pass with your best violence. I am afeard you make a _wanton_ of me!"

"So you say?" Laertes shot back, marching back toward her and raising his sword, growing, "Come on!"

Their angers now matched, their blows were hard and fast and they came far too close to cutting each other again. When they parted again, Osric called the bought.

"Nothing neither way," Osric called.

"Have at you now!" Laertes shouted, lunging at Hamletta and cutting her forearm, making her shout in pain and back away.

She gave a roar as she charged at him, tackling him to the deck by the waist, their swords skittering across the deck as they started throwing punches at each other, hitting and missing until they broke apart and grabbed for the swords that had been abandoned. They pointed the blades at each other, not knowing whose sword was whose as they slowly stood, not taking their gazes from each other as they circled. Hamletta lunged at Laertes, who wasn't prepared for the strike and the blade slicing into his arm.

"Part them!" Claudius shouted, sending Horatio and Osric into action.

Horatio grabbed Hamletta around the waist to carry her back a few steps from Laertes who swung with his sword at her as Osric pulled him away.

"Nay! Come again!" Hamletta shouted, swinging her sword at him, but all eyes shot to Gertrude when she dropped to the floor.

"Look to the Queen there, ho!" Osric called as Hamletta dropped her sword, shoving Horatio away to scramble toward her fallen mother, kneeling next to her to lift her into her lap, tears in her eyes.

"They bleed on both sides," Horatio panted from his struggle. "How is it, my lord?"

"How is 't, Laertes?" Osric asked, releasing him and Laertes stumbled in place.

"Why…as a woodcock to mine own…springe, Osric," he panted before dropping to his knees, drawing everyone's attention to him but Hamletta's, who still watched over Gertrude. "I am justly killed with mine own treachery."

"How does the Queen?" Hamletta shuddered.

"She…swoons to see them bleed," Claudius lied, attempting to approach, but Horatio stepped in his way with a glare.

"No, no, the drink, the drink!" Gertrude wheezed, reaching up weakly to grip Hamletta's shirt to pull her crying daughter closer, looking her in the eyes. "O…my dear Hamletta! The drink, the drink!"

Hamletta nodded the she knew, tears rolling from her eyes as she pulled her closer.

"I…am…poisoned," she breathed, meeting Hamletta's gaze before her head fell back with one last breath.

Hamletta shook her head before bowing it, hugging her dead mother close as she gave silent sobs. She lifted her head again, calmly looking up at Horatio who stood over them with sorrow in his eyes.

"O villainy," she hissed, lowering Gertrude's body and standing to glare around the group gathered, all looking shocked…except two. And she planned to make this last as long as possible. "Let the ladders be pulled up. Treachery. Seek it out."

"It is here…Hamletta," Laertes called from his knees on the floor before falling onto his hands, and Hamletta made slow steps toward him as he coughed. "Hamletta…thou art _slain_. No med'cine in the world can do thee good. In thee there is not half an hour's life." He fell onto his side with a grunt and stared up at her as she loomed over him, glaring at him. "The treacherous instrument…is in thy hand."

Hamletta looked to the sword she held as he went on.

"Unbated and envenomed. The foul practice hath turned itself on me. Lo…here I lie, never to rise again. Thy mother's poisoned. I can no more. The King…The King's to blame."

"The point envenomed, too," she ground out, glaring at Claudius who looked back at her, for the first time, in terror.

She stepped over Laertes, marching toward him, and he tried to turn and run, but Horatio gripped him from behind him, holding his arms captive as Hamletta met him, pressing the sharp blade of the rapier to his cheek as their eyes met. His heart raced with fear as she shot daggers at him with her eyes.

She slowly applied pressure to the blade and just as slowly pulled it down his face, hissing, "Then, _venom_, to thy work."

Claudius growled in pain, and when the blade reached the tip, she stepped back, letting Horatio shove him forward to her feet. She stared down at him as he looked around at the sailors and others in panic.

"O yet defend me, friends!" he pleaded, now sounding so pathetic and helpless that made Hamletta chuckle, a sneer curling her lip. "I am but hurt!"

Hamletta lifted a hand, looking to Horatio and he read her action, making his way toward her dead mother, still gripping the half full mug and lifting it to take it to her. She gripped the mug in rage as she and Claudius never took their gazes from each other's and Horatio took his place behind Claudius again, both kneeling as he was. Horatio grabbed Claudius' head, forcing his jaw open and making him call out in fear as he stared wide eyes at Hamletta before him, lifting the mug with a triumphant smirk.

"Here," she smiled, sweetly before spitting, "thou incestuous, murd'rous, damned Dane…drink off this potion."

She poured the drink into his mouth as he tried to resist, but Horatio had a tight grip on his jaw to keep him from thrashing away.

"Is thy union here?!" Hamletta mocked, nearly emptying the mug into his mouth before finally pulling it away. She stood back again and Horatio shoved him forward once more as Hamletta watched Claudius writhe in pain and near death at her feet before she screamed in tears, "Follow my mother!"

At those words, Claudius seized, then froze and slumped to the deck, face first, and all stared at the dead King as Horatio stood and Hamletta panted from rage as she stared at him.

"He is justly served," Laertes nodded, weakly and making her turn to him where he still lay on the floor. "It is a poison tempered by himself. Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamletta."

She swallowed before stepping toward him, setting the mug down to grip his hand in hers when he offered it, and they looked each other in the eyes.

"Mine…and my father's death come not upon thee," he wheezed. "Now thine…on…me."

Laertes gave his last breath before his hand fell limp from Hamletta's as tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Heaven make thee free of it," she whispered before trying to stand but she stumbled. "I follow thee."

Horatio raced to her side when she lost her balance enough to fall, but he caught her, lowering her to the floor with him. He looked to her as her head rested on his chest, looking up at him as well.

"I…am dead, Horatio," she breathed, staring up at him as tears welled in his eyes. "Wretched queen, adieu. You that look pale and tremble at this chance, that are but mutes or audience to this act, had I but time…as this fell sergeant, Death, is strict in his arrest. O…I could tell you—"

She lifted a hand to stroke his cheek as he looked to her in expectation of her next words but she shook her head with a sad smile.

"But…let it be," she recanted, shaking her head again and looking away from him before sobbing, "Horatio…"

She looked to him in tears and whispered, "I am dead! Thou _livest_. Report me and my cause aright to the unsatisfied."

"Never believe it," he whispered, shaking his head, his voice thick with emotion, as were his tears as he stroked her face, soothingly. "I am more an antique Roman than a Dane."

His gaze caught sight of the mug and Hamletta saw the look in his eyes as he reached for it, staring into it before looking back at her.

"Here's yet some liquor left," he murmured, lifting it to his lips.

"As thou'rt a man, give me the cup!" Hamletta snarled, slapping a hand over his mouth and grabbing the lip of the mug to tug it away, but he tugged it back and they struggled for it before she growled, "Let go! By heaven, I'll have it!"

He tugged it free of her grasp and raised it to his lips again, but before he could drink she slapped it out of his hand and across the deck, spilling the last of the contents over the wood. He stared at it with wide eyes before looking back at her in shock and some anger, but more sorrow.

"O god, Horatio," she wheezed, lifting a hand to his cheek again. "What a wounded name, things standing thus unknown, shall I leave behind me!"

He shuddered with a sob before hugging her close, but when he pulled back she raised her chin to leave a tender kiss to his lips, pulling away quickly to look into his shocked gaze.

"If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, absent thee from felicity awhile and in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain to tell my story."

Some distant shouting was heard off the starboard bow, and Osric ran to the side to see what was approaching before a shout rang through the air.

"What warlike noise is this?" Hamletta frowned, weakly.

"Young Fortinbras," Osric reported, watching two small dinghies make their way toward the ship. "With conquest come from the _Poland_, to th' ambassadors of the _England_ gives the warlike volley."

"Oh!" Hamletta groaned in pain, turning Horatio's gaze back to her as she gripped at his vest, panting. "I die, Horatio! The potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirit. I cannot live to hear the news from the _England_. But I do prophesy th' election lights on Fortinbras…he has my dying voice. So tell him, with th' occurrents, more and less, which have solicited. The rest…is silence."

Horatio's eyes widened as Hamletta's did, her breathing becoming ragged before she choked on a breath and fell limp in his arms, her eyes fluttering shut. Tears fell freely from his eyes as he pulled her closer to set his cheek on her forehead.

"Now cracks a noble heart," he shuddered. "Good night, sweet princess, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."

The splash of water from the ladder being thrown down again, then men's boots hitting the hull as they climbed up.

"Why does the drum come hither?" he questioned Osric who stepped back from the railing as a group of sailors climbed on.

One young man wore fine materials of greys and blacks, his bright blue eyes instantly landing on Hamletta and Horatio as he pulled his black leather hat off and handed it to one of the sailors, revealing black, shaggy hair. He slowly stepped toward the two as Horatio stared up at him, noting how short he looked compared to his own stature and recognizing him as Fortinbras. He knelt next to them, his blue eyes filled with sorrow before he looked to Horatio who had turned his gaze on the dead Hamletta.

"Where is this sight?" Fortinbras whispered, setting a hand on Horatio's shoulder.

"What is it you would see?" Horatio shrugged, his voice thick with emotion. "If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search."

Fortinbras looked around at the deck as he stood, not failing to notice the bodies of Claudius, Gertrude and Laertes as well, and sighed, "This quarry cries on havoc."

"_O proud Death_," he thought as he slowly stepped among the corpses, looking to each one, sadly. "_What feast is toward in thine eternal cell that thou so many princes at a shot so bloodily hast struck?_"

"The sight is dismal," one of the sailors shuddered, his gaze scanning the deck. "And our affairs from the _England_ come too late. The ears are senseless that should give us hearing to tell her that her commandment is fulfilled, that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Where should we have our thanks?"

"Not from _her_ mouth, had it th' ability of life to thank you," Horatio murmured, his voice devoid of all feeling, as if everything feeling in him had been ripped out of his heart. He slowly lowered Hamletta's body to the deck and stood to face the men from the _England _and Fortinbras with dead eyes. "She never gave commandment for their death. But since, so jump upon this bloody question, you from the Polack wars, and you from the _England_, are here arrived, give order that these bodies high on a stage be placed to the view, and let me speak to th' yet unknowing world how these things came about. So shall you hear of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts, of accidental judgments, casual slaughters, of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause, and, in this upshot, purposes mistook fall'n on th' inventors' heads." He looked Fortinbras in the eyes as he nodded, "All this can I truly deliver."

Fortinbras nodded, stepping back toward Horatio and placing a hand on his shoulder, meeting his gaze as he said, "Let us hast to hear it and the call the noblest to audience. For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune. I have some rights of memory in this kingdom, which now to claim my vantage doth invite me."

"Of that I shall have also cause to speak," Horatio nodded. "And from her mouth whose voice will draw on more. But let this same be presently performed even while men's minds are wild, lest more mischance on plots and errors happen."

Fortinbras nodded before glancing around the deck again then faced the group surrounding them.

"Let four captains bear Hamletta like a sailor to the stage," he announced. "For she was likely, had she been put on, to have proved most royal, and for her passage, the sailor's music and the rite of war speak loudly for her.

"Take up the bodies," he ordered his men. "Such a sight as this becomes the field but here shows much amiss." He ordered another sailor, "Go, bid the sailors shoot."

They all scrambled to clear the deck and fulfill Fortinbras' orders as Horatio looked to Hamletta, then knelt down to lift her limp body in his arms, following Fortinbras into the captain's cabin to tell his story. The story of Hamletta.

* * *

**A/N:** Ben Whishaw as Fortinbras! and this was my rendition of Hamlet. hope you all enjoyed it! thanks for reading! reviews?


End file.
